Using Portals

[Atip]

I am a new user to FileMaker Pro. I am a previous user of MySQL and MS Access. This switched came after my recent switch to a Macintosh with my purchase of a PowerBook. I am quite impressed by the software and realize that I have been missing out alot before switching over to Mac. i find the software very intuitive and easy to use. However, I find that this one feature: "portals" is very difficult to use, and is not very intiuitive and obvious at first. I have a few problems that i hope you could help me with.

In using portal to display related records from another table, I have the following questions that I need help with.

1) When adding a portal to my page layout, the border and the scrollbar of the portal are invisible at all time (even when clicking). I can correct this by selecting the border and the scrollbar to be drawn with the right thickness. However now the border and the scrollbar are visible at all time (even when not selected). The other components in my layout only have their border and scrollbar visible when they are selected. How can I make my portal behave like the other components in that the border and the scrollbar are only visible when the portal is selected.

2) Adding records via the portal is very straightforward. However, I cannot find any means for deleting records from the portal. I tried searching tru the menus and, etc. Yet I still cannot find the way.

3) One of the field in my portal is a container. The containers do not alternate color like the rest of the portal fields (after something has been inserted into a containers). Is therre a way to get the containers inside the portal to alternate color like the rest of the fields?

Thank you very much!

Atip

[dbruggmann]

1) You can't exactly simulate the field behaviour with portals. As far as I know, the nearest you get is the following: Select a line colour

for the portal, but set the line width to

[Keith LaMarre]

2 is not exactly correct - you can delete related records in a portal (if the protal has "delete" capability setup on the layout) just by going to the portal row and hitting delete. However, it is certainly true that a script can be setup to do dome checking to see if you SHOULD be deleting the related records.

[Aussie John]

2)double click the portal while in layout mode. select allow portal records to be deleted.

3) the fields you have placed are transparent and are showing the alternating bands of the portal. The container is opaque hence the band disappears under that field

[bruceR]

Note that if you put a delete button in a portal, you do not have to turn on "allow portal records to be deleted".