Need direction: Creating a "wizard"

[Zeph]

I'm currently planning a solution that will be used to create very complex reports, the reports are highly variable, and use a high number of tables and joins. The primary concern is 1)Flexibility, 2)Ease of Use (for the user, of course).

What I would like to create is a "wizard" that will walk the user though a series of questions, offer checkboxes and text fields, switching from layout to layout for each questions, then "remembering" the answer, then finally using a FMP Script (no applescript, sorry) to run the queries, build the report and present it in one big-*ss layout that the graphics person can copy and paste into Quark Xpress).

I'm not sure how to go about this. I'm about a 6-8 of 10 in terms of expertise building FMP solutions, what I need is for someone to suggest directions in which I can think, urls that may apply.

What approach do you suggest for building a "wizard" in FMP7?

[Zeph]

After some thought, I realize that what is necessary is that i somehow be able to store a query as a record. If I can do this, then it's just a matter of making queries to retrieve other queries, then to run them, and produce a report. Does anyone know if this is do-able in FMP?

[Ender]

I think Ugo is working on a similar project.

[Ugo DI LUCA]

Hi,

Quite the same stuff indeed. Although, the project (which turned to real a few days ago), is focused on Find Requests.

With the separate file approach, you'd be able to create any wizard you wish for sure.

It took me 2 whole months, working 2 to 3 hours a day to come up with this solution and test it for real.

But when running, it's a real pleasure...

[Ender]

I have been working on a report builder that sounds similar to your wizard, but doesn't store the requests or the results. This is how mine works:

1. Go to a search layout with the most common fields

2. Go to a list view showing the results of the find.

3. Go to a report options layout, allowing the user to choose the report layout.

4. Go to a sort options layout, giving the user available sorting options.

5. Perform the sort and go to the correct report layout.

At each step, the user can backtrack to a previous step.

I still haven't got step 4 figured out. I only want to allow sort options that will work for the report layout they chose. Also, this would have to be reproduced in each file for it to work system-wide. Ugo's system sounds more extendable.

Hope that helps.

[Zeph]

Would you consider posting your approach, or even, perhaps some example files that demonstrate your approach? It's been 18 months since I've done any FMP work, and the refresher would be very handy.

[Zeph]

To give you a bit of an example of what I'm dealing with:

I have to create a "new project" that is a combination of new data entered, and pointers to existing records. The report is comprised of several consecutive sections:

Project name (new)

Client Name (new)

Intro Letter (new)

Executive Summary (based on the contents of below, new record)

Find records; from found records check one or more record/fields to remember. May be a lookup.

Identification

(Choose one field of 20 from any given record that talks about the company. It might be field 2 from record 6 and field 9 from record 21. Remember these choices)

Project Team

(Choose 1 field from multiple records. Remember these choices)

Project experience

(Choose any number of fields from multiple records. Remember the choices)

Client References

(Choose pre-determined fields from any number of records. Remember these choices.)

Certificates

(Choose 1 field from among any number of records. Remember the choices.)

View report (view the all contents retrieved, in sequence).

Go back and correct if necessary.

At this moment I have no idea on how to even get started on putting this together. Creating the stucture of the database is no problem, but the user cannot do a million searches, and copy and paste. The whole point of this database is to make building this report fast and easy. This is why I chose the wizard approach.

Any and all suggestions appreciated.

[Ugo DI LUCA]

Hi Zeph,

It's pretty hard to give accurate advices here.

The structure of your report, from the "Experience Section" you described, could vary in size and number of fields.

That's the starting point of reflexion in my opinion.

How these fields would be filled would be easy using the extra file you were thinking of.

There are an unlimited number of ways to parse out fields content with FileMaker.

1.The FieldNames() function should just offer you a way to pick the necessary fields

2. GetField() or a loop with Status(CurrentFieldName) and Status(CurrentFieldContent) would help parse out the field content and set the values of your reporting fields.

The Search_Engine Project is rather a different approach, and wouldn't enlight you more IMO.

I may consider posting a Customizable solution here.

[George TOUBALIS]

You can script 10-15 custom exports (tab delimited) and then the magic .....

"http://www.emsoftware.com/products/xdata"

Copy & paste is not the future of the DTP but the nature of most graphic designers

[Ugo DI LUCA]

That's interresting George.

This could solve the Final Report Formating, which would better *IMO* take place in another file anyway, either in 7 or prior versions.

Thanks for the link. I might have some use of it shortly.

[George TOUBALIS]

Your wellcome..

This my tool to make huge cataloques in QuarkXpress 200-600pages-- (1500-5000 products)

if you have any (Q) Just tell me...

George

[MarkWilson]

To solve a similar solution to the one Ender described, I use a contactenated field separted by "_" for sorting. (The underscore allows the use of Word functions and more indexing.) Then, I sorted by the concatenated field. You can set all your layouts with the same sort and use the Go to Layout[ layout number by field...] script step to select the layout.

a) In this application I used a script to set a global field with the order of field names I wanted to sort by. I used a calculation field with a series of GetField() functions and "_" to concatenate the new sort order. The problem is that the result is Unstored and is slow if there are lots of records.

b)The other options is to index a text field and loop the concatenation into it from the global using the same GetField and "_" technique.

c)The final option is to use If script steps to perform the correct sort sub-script.

[Zeph]

Yes, the tough part here is NOT the concatenation of the records into one report.

Here's what I need to do: Display a list of standard questions in a layout. Each of the "answers" to these questions in effect is a query. The query could be made though the search for a name, or though the check of a box next to a record. The hard part is getting FMP to a) make multiple and varied queries in one setting, : remember the values of the queries, c) run the queries in one fell swoop.

That's the kicker. If, for example I could get each query to generate some SQL, and keep appending it in a global, then run the query in the global, that would be a beaut, but that's just not what FMP is about. As a web developer, this is a piece of cake using a server side solution such as ColdFusion or PHP, but on the app side, I think that I need to investigate another solution, such as 4D.

I welcome any corrections, comments or alternative solutions anyone can think of. It would be great to use FMP, but I also can't spend years trying to get a fish to fly. FMP has it's strengths and weaknesses, I have to focus on the tools whose strengths cater to my needs. *sigh*.

Z