Can i setup a way to make the portal show only the number of rows that actually have data? right now all i know how to do is set how many rows to show. i would like it to change depending on how many records are found through the portal. is this possible?

If you will have calculation field with 0 if record has no data and 1 if record is populated and include that result in relation, then only records with data will be shown in portal.

HTH

I'm Not sure i understand. what i want to do is be able to show only one row if there is only 1 related record and 2 rows if 2 related records and so on.

Did you try that? It will do just that.

I think you want a variable-row portal.

One way of doing it is to have multiple copies of the layout, one with one row, another with two etc. Then use a script to display the layout based on the number of related records.

Hi Jamesooooo,

I, like Vaughan, thought you meant displaying a variable row portal but I didn't have a chance to respond until now. I considered the multiple-layout option but was a bit concerned about recommending it anyway. Lord, if you want to display more than just a handful of records, it would be a nightmare.

You could also consider faking the look of the variable portal so it appears to shrink or expand by changing the portal fill & pen patterns to transparent (if not using a vertical scroll) or portal fill to transparent and pen colour to match your layout background colour (if using scroll bar). If you don

Thanks for your help. i decided to just live with the fact it is showing X amount of rows and use a scroll bar. I plan to have another portal under it now so it seems like the way to go.

LaRetta's right. Roll on Filemaker 7!

I never saw anybody who got such a kick out of extra white paper that they wanted to print empty portal rows.

Your problem's similar to mine, in that I want a report showing a number of tables of unpredictable length.

I get around it in read-only mode by exporting each found set to HTML. Then, using server-side scripting, like "PHP include", I can make a pretty elegant solution, - Eventually! This generates a single client-side HTML file with each "table" in order and a description in-between.

If you want to stick with in Filemaker you could try a merge fields option; When there's no data, there's no space used up.

So you see there's more than one way to skin a portal.

Steve

RE: print empty portal rows.

Oh, printing is another issue. We do not print portals. We print the list of records from the "portal" file. Like invoice or quotation.

RE: print empty portal rows.

Whether printing or just trying to browse records, the result is the same: Nobody wants empty space.

Printing a list of records is fine - if that is what you want. However, if you want a specific layout with a list within a context, Filemaker still won't do it economically.

Printing is also a serious environmental issue.

Software publishers are in a position to facilitate responsible use of paper (especially printing to PDF instead of paper). I like the idea of a enviromental star-rating for software which saves paper. I will pay more for this software.

It will also help cut down on my storage problems and the size of my daily printed records folder, (telephone-book thick already this year!)

Steve