Forgive my ignorance - I am new to Filemaker . Planning to create a DB that emails a moderator with any new records before they are publically searchable in the database. Does this sound do-able and would it be best to use applescript or lasso etc?

This is doable. Basically add a number field called "Approved" to the database. Set it to 0 by default in the Auto-enter options. When a moderator approves it, set it to 1. In all of your search criteria, store this option with the Enter Find Mode if the searches are being done in FileMaker, and then the user can add any other search criteria. You store the search criteria by performing a find with Approved=1 and then creating a script with an Enter Find Mode step with the restore option on. Or if the script already exists, open the script and close it and select replace for the find criteria.

If the searches happen in Lasso, add a hidden input tag to the form like this:

<input type="hidden" name="Approved" value="1">

This will have the same effect as storing that search in a script.

Chuck