how do portals

[Shana]

I work at a post production company that uses hand written notecards to write down time codes of work that are layed off to video tapes. I have been working to create a filemaker pro database system to eliminate these handwritten cards which are often lost through misuse.

Basically there are two layouts, card view and list view. I have it set up so that each card has editable information in it like NAME of CARD and CARD NUMBER which are transfered and displayed successfully in the list view. However, I have set up a portal in the card for each time-code entry. There could be several entries per card. I do not need this information displayed anywhere else but on each seperate card (assuming each card is a separate record).

Anyway, inside the portal are the fields date, artist_initials, room_number, description, time_code_in, and time_code_out. I have tried to look at several portal database templates but I cannot get it to work correctly. I set up a related file where the relationship is a calculation that results in 1. Please help. When I go into browser mode the portal fields are uneditable. Thanks.

[ernst]

Hi Shana,

I suppose that you have a separate database for the data that displays in your portal?

If so then just define a serialnumber field in your main file and in the portal file and have the relation between these serialnumber fields. If you use a calculation field that is always 1, then the portal records wil relate to ALL records in your main database, and I think that i not what you want.

Hope this helps,

Ernst.

[Shana]

I would like to type the information into the portal and be done with that row. Then when I need to write another time code down, I would like to type that in the second row. We use hundreds of cards so I would need to do this for each card.

I am new to fiilemaker pro however I have a background in programming.

[ernst]

Hi Shana,

If you want the portal records to be created 'on the fly' when you type in new data, just turn on 'Allow Creation of Related Records' in the Relation Setup Dialog.

Did my first reply help?

Ernst.

[Shana]

Hey I don't think I am explain my query correctly.

Basically i have a database of records. Each record needs to have it's own portal with separate information in it with unlimited number of rows despite the amount displayed. How do I accomplish this?

[Shana]

wait i think the 'allow creation of related records' may have done the trick!!

thanky ou!

[ernst]

Make sure you take a look at the serialnumber thing as well to make sure that every portal record links to only one main record.

In addition to my first post I should also have mentioned that you should set the serialnumber in the mainfile to auto-enter a unique serialnumber via field definition. The serialnumber in the portal file should NOT have an autoenetered value, as it gets its value automatically from the main file when a new record is created via the 'allow creation of related records' option.

Good luck ,

Ernst.

[Fenton]

I'm assuming that Card Number is an auto-entered, hence unique, incremented serial number, in the Cards database file.

The other file, Card_TimeCodes would also have this field, same type, but just a regular field, not auto-enter.

The relationship is Cards_CardNumber =::CardNumber in Card_TimeCodes.

Because of the "unlimited" number needed, I would not turn on "auto-enter related records" in the relationship.

Instead I'd sort the relationship descending by another auto-entered serial number field (type number) in Card_TimeCodes. It may only be used for this. (You could alternatively sort by a Date & Time field(s). But the above will show records in order of entry, which is often the way you want.)

Create a global field in Cards, _gCardNum.

Also a Constant1 field, calculation, =1.

Create a Constant1 field in Card_TimeCodes and a relationship between the Constant1's, from Card_TimeCodes to Cards.

Create a script in Card_TimeCodes, New Record <--Cards:

Create Record

Set Field ["CardNum", "Cards_Constant__gCardNum"]

Exit Record

In the Cards file, create a script. This script will be attached to a "New Row" (or whatever) button, next to the portal.

Set Field ["_gCardNum", "CardNum"]

Exit Record

Perform Script [External, "Card_TimeCodes"] --> New Record script

Go to Field [ "Card_TimeCodes::Artist_Initials" ]

You should then be in the 1st row of the portal, ready to begin other data entry.

It will always be the 1st row, so it doesn't matter so much if there's a lot of them.

TimeCards.zip