Return to previous layout

[GibCo]

I leave my files pretty open so my customers have a great deal of flexibility when using my software. I have navigation system of buttons that take them from one level of the program to the next. There are menus with buttons they can click to go to the layout of their choice. Every layout has Main and Sub buttons that take them to the Main menu or to the one they were just in. In addition to this I have an alphabetized layout Index of Layouts they can go to from any layout and then click the button for the next layout they want to go to.

I thought it was pretty handly and worked for both right brained and left brained folks. :-)

Lately I am getting requests to have a "return to previous" layout. I know I can setup a global field to hold the number of the last layout, close everything down so they can go nowhere without clicking on a button. Then write a script to EVERY layout that sets the global field to the number of the current layout BEFORE going to the next requested layout. Then when they hit the return to previous layout, have it return to the layout with the number of in the global field.

But I have over 150 layouts and only God knows how many buttons that are current setup as Go To Layout.... which would have to connected to the appropriate script after all of them had been created.

This seems like overkill and there must be an esier way to do it.

Bev

(GibCo)

[LiveOak]

The only option to avoid linking buttons on every layout to your back script is to use the scriptmaker memu to display the "back" script and let the user select it there. If you have a "window cleanup" subscript that is called by all your navigation scripts, you can put your layout capture set field in that script and avoid having to put it in a lot of scripts.

Personally, I think the brower paradigm is junk for most purposes. I just can't wait until everything uses it .

-bd

[GibCo]

bd,

Thanks for your ideas. If I did it, I was going to put the "Return to last layout" script in the script popup menu. I was not even thinking about putting a stupid return arrow button on every layout. But I guess the only way to have FMP remember what the last layout was, is to make all the navigation buttons have a script that remembers the number for that layout BEFORE it zips to the next layout( the layout capture script).

I was afraid that was going to be the answer but I thought maybe I had missed some cute little status thing that held the number of the last layout! I knew it would have been too easy if it did. I'm going to think about whether it is cost effective for me to spend all the hours it will take to re-script every navigation button in my program, which could approach 400 buttons! BOO! HISS! Thanks again!

Bev

GibCo

[BobWeaver]

One other thing to keep in mind when putting in a "return to previous" button thingy is that it may not make any sense unless you also return to the previous found set and previous sort order, and that is close to impossible to do.