HELP! Portal redraw problems

[Alan H]

I don't understand this problem yet.

I have a file, and when I create a portal (with scroll bars) and place it in the header or the footer of a document, the portal is nearly unusable because of redraw problems: when I scroll using the arrows strings of bits stream across the portal, when I scroll by a page (clicking above or below the "thumb" of the scroll bar) most of the records are not updated on the screen. (You can see this because when you select a portal row, suddenly the "real" data in the portal is shown. Changing the size of the record w/in the portal changes what goes wrong, but in every case the portal always shows the wrong data after being scrolled.

What is really strange is that any new portal that I create in my document has this behavior. However, if I create a "test" document and follow the same steps I can't replicate this behavior. Any thoughts?

FileMaker Version: Dev 7

Platform: Mac OS X Jaguar

[Alan H]

Followup on my own posting. I deleted 90% of my file and the bug still shows itself. The portal in gray comes from the original file, the portal in blue was just added.

Windows users--I sure would love it if you could tell me if the portal scrolls correctly on your machines!

Thx

Scrolling bug.fp7.zip

[Fenton]

Yep, it's not working. And it works in 6. It appears that the setting for the number of rows is basically all you get in a Header, scrolling doesn't work.

I'm also on Mac, 10.3.3; are PC's working ?

[Fenton]

Correction. It works in Form view, but not in List view. You can't test this is v.6, 'cause you can't even click the scroll bar when it's in List view. But one assumes that if you could, you'd see the same problem. So at least we're not losing anything.

[Alan H]

Thanks Fenton. I don't understand what you mean "it works in 6." Is there a way to backward migrate from 7 to 6? Or did you recreate the structure of the database using 6?

I ask, because if you recreate this database in v.7, the bug doesn't show itself. This bug does not appear to be a display bug inherent in FMP7, but a bug that appears under unknown circumstances and corrupts something in a document, which will make it difficult to isolate.

To others--am I the only person who has seen this? It would seem that portals are so common that others would have uncovered this bug.

[dkemme]

Definately a bug, I've reported it to FM but no response. Seems more pronounced with portals with many matches when you get to the bottom of scrolling. Although you are at the bottom of the portal scrolling, scrolling continues and a very jumbled mass of text appears.

[Alan H]

dkemme said:

Definately a bug, I've reported it to FM but no response. Seems more pronounced with portals with many matches when you get to the bottom of scrolling. Although you are at the bottom of the portal scrolling, scrolling continues and a very jumbled mass of text appears.

That was step 1 of the process (on Thursday as I was working on this file).

Step 2 was when portal wouldn't show new relations when they were added until you "rezoomed" the window--either by hand or in a script step.

Step 3 was when portals (in the header or footer) stopped showing anything close to reality.

Happy coding!

FileMaker Version: Dev 7

Platform: Mac OS X Jaguar

[Fenton]

Sorry, it does not work in 6. You can't scroll a portal at all when it's in the Header in 6, you can't enter the portal. I think you'll find that in either version it works in Form view, but does not work in List view. You only notice it as a bug in 7 because it allows you to enter the portal, therefore you think it should scroll (and it should), but it really only shows the those records first visible, then gets funky (reminds me a bit of running summaries in a portal, which would show only the same number until you clicked into them when they'd show you the correct total).

So, it's a bug, or an unfinished feature, whichever way you want to look at it (glass half empty, half full kind of thing). But going back to 6 is not the answer at all; and there's no way it will work in List view in 7 until they fix it (and I assume they will or they wouldn't have turned on the ability to enter the portal).

[DrRoebuck]

Hey Alan

I'm running FM7 on WinXP, and the behavior is the same. In Form View, the portal works fine, but not in List View.

While portals are common, I don't think they're so common in headers and footers while in List View, which is why no one else seems to have come across this.

FileMaker Version: 7

Platform: Windows XP

[Alan H]

Thank you all for your help. I think I will try to proceed by using a simple self-relation portal to show the view of the data that I was using the list view for.

[Alan H]

Quick update. It appears that portals redraw incorrectly both in list and form view, with the portal in either the header or the body of the window. I don't think I can go forward using FMP7--what a waste of money!

[Fenton]

Wait a minute. If what you say is true then portals don't work anywhere under any conditions. It's true that there are portal redraw problems sometimes when you have related calculations. It's also true that they don't scroll properly when in the Header when viewing as List. But they work find in the Body in Form view, which is their primary use.

Now that we've established that your original technique will not work because of a bug, perhaps you should back up and look again at what you're trying to accomplish. There is usually an alternate method, especially with the new multiple windows ability, which can create a new window of the current file in a specific place, with its own settings, such as form view (where you could put your portal).

Personally I seldom use scrolling portals. I filter them if there are going to be a lot of matches, or worst-case scenario, make the layout really tall; I prefer to scroll the whole page, or use Page Down, etc., rather than use the dinky portal scroll bars.

[Alan H]

Fenton said:

Wait a minute. If what you say is true then portals don't work anywhere under any conditions. It's true that there are portal redraw problems sometimes when you have related calculations. It's also true that they don't scroll properly when in the Header when viewing as List. But they work find in the Body in Form view, which is their primary use.

Well, that's not really what I am saying. I am saying that in my file, portals don't work anywhere. This is true. I have the feeling that something "broke" in the file while I was editing it.

It is instructive to recreate this file from scratch--just create a simple file with the one table, 3 fields, and one relationship, and populate it with some data. I just did this, and I found that most of the portals seem to work correctly--as you suggest. However, the bug where a scroll bar in the portal scrolls the entire window does show up in "View as List", as well as the redraw problems in this case. So, some of these bugs manifest themselves in any database, while others only show up after some unknown steps.

Now as to why I am using portals. This is a file for my own use, but I thought it would be worth trying to file my photos according to the place where the photo was taken. Thus I can find all photos that are from San Francisco, from California, etc. So I have one data base that stores the location, and a second that makes relations ("A contains B") between them. The second has enough smarts to know that if A is in B, and B is in C, then A is in C also.

So far, so good, but now I need to edit the relations. So I put 4 or 5 portals onto a layout: the location in question, those locations that contain it, those that are within it, and candidate locations that can be added to the hierarchy. This would be difficult to do in multiple windows.

I know, it seems a weird thing to do, but I thought that if I could do it in a day or two it would be worth the effort.

For what its worth, now what I have is a database in which no portals display correctly at any place. I have attached it here (it's small) so that you can confirm it. In fact, the portals are so screwed up that scrolling a portal will actually scroll the window itself under some circumstances, suggesting that Filemaker is confused about which scroll bar is connected to what.

Thanks for your thoughts.

FileMaker Version: Dev 7

Platform: Mac OS X Jaguar

Scrolling bug 2.fp7.zip

[Fenton]

I don't see anything "wrong" with the file. As we said, the portals scroll properly in any part when you view as Form. They only scroll properly* in List view when they're in the Body; which you'd rarely do.

*There are slight anomalies when viewing as List when the portal's in the Body. The little square that shows your position tends to get a false "double" down at the bottom also; but this is just an artifact, not a real problem.

If however, you turn off "Show Field Frames When Record is Active," in Layout Setup, then the portal in the Body misbehaves just like the one in the Header.

Here's an idea of a New Window with the portal.

Scrolling bug 2.zip

[Alan H]

Fenton said:

I don't see anything "wrong" with the file. As we said, the portals scroll properly in any part when you view as Form. They only scroll properly* in List view when they're in the Body; which you'd rarely do.

Thanks, but if you look at the file I posted, you will see (or, at least, I see on my computer) that the scrolling doesn't work in Form View either. I get doubled entries, and when I click on the down arrow, the last row of the portal is duplicated ad infinitum. The worst problem I have with all of this is that if I were to put a button on the portal, clicking the button would often trigger a script with the wrong entry in the portal. However, it must be said that I only see the bugs in Form View in this file, and other FMP7 files do not appear to show the bug reliably (I have seen something like these bugs in Form View in other database files, but I can't repeat them reliably).

I like the simple design of your proposed solution, and am thinking about whether I can incorporate something like that. I am torn between using FMP6 which I trust, or FMP7 which has so many features that make designing a complicated solution fun and easy.

FileMaker Version: Dev 7

Platform: Mac OS X Jaguar

[Neverland]

I think the reason you may be seeing problems in some files and not others is that some of your portals are configured with a line point / thickness of 0 (zero).

In the short term...try setting them to something other than 0 and see if that makes a difference.

SR

[dreamingmind]

If you move the portal into the body it scrolls/displays properly. Move it back to the header, messed up again.

Since fm7 allows multiple windows for a file/table, you could show the portal in the body of a separate window to accomplish the same basic layout as your portal-in-header version.

Don

[Ano Nimus]

I find that if I leave some room between the portal rows and use a small-ish non-bold font that the redraw problems (if that's what they are) mainly or even completely go away. It does not matter at all where my portal is (header, body, footer).

I can scroll down indefinitely indeed, that's a programming bug I suppose.

[dreamingmind]

Although your suggestion does not solve the scrolling problem in the sample file.

Don

[seraph_nyc]

I found a work around. I created 2 buttons and 2 scripts. The up button with the script go to previous portal row and then one for down, go to next portal row. It was a good work around but not perfect.

[supergrug]

If you give the portal a border, it seems to work as it should.

If I set the border to zero, it "bounces" as described elsewhere. If I set the border to hairline or greater, the problem disappears.

My portal is in the body of a form view layout.