checking a checkbox replaces items in record

[Barbara]

Hi...I am very new to Filemaker and Claris Home page, but so far so (reasonably) good. I do not have CDML experience.

I have been using HTML and HTML forms for years.

I have a question about how checkboxes interact with the FM database. If you do have an answer for me, can you super-dumb it down for a very new user? -)

I'm using FM 6.0 and have used Claris Homepage to create the Web interface to the database. I'm then customizing the HTML pages. When I created the interface with Claris, I instructed the one field (Editor/Designer Name) to appear as a checkbox and to allow multiple entries.

So I did that and in the HTML file, for the checkboxes, this appeared once:

[FMP-VALULIST: Editor/Designer Name, LIST=-Editor/Designer Name] <checkbox symbol> [FMP-VALUELISTITEM: Always, HTML] [/FMP-VALUELIST]

The field (Editor/Designer Name) is derived from a value list that contains about 30 names. How can I get each of these names reflected in the Web interface AND do so in a way that allows the user to view a record and ADD new checkmarks to a record without overwriting the existing ones?

I tried to fix this in the HTML by creating a radio box for each of the people in the Editor/Designer value list and associating those with the correct field. This works, but it overwrites existing checked entries in the database.

For example, imagine that a user is viewing a record with a checklist that looks like this:

__ parsley

__ sage

__ rosemary

__ thyme

and the current record indicates this:

X parsley

X sage

X rosemary

__ thyme

The user sees that "parsley", "sage", and "rosemary" are checked and wants to check "thyme" also. So he doesand then clicks the submit button. The problem is that now the record displays only thyme as the checked item. The user replaced the record's checkbox items instead of augmenting them.

How can I fix this? (If you do have an answer for me, can you super-dumb it down for a very new user? :-)

[Barbara]

Many thanks to Tim Booth for the solution:

The checkbox field that Claris was inserting works only if you call up the page in this way:

http://LOCALHOST/FMPro?-db=db.fp5&-format=filename.htm&-view

For example, if I'm on my machine and I want to call up the search page for a database that's named politicians.fp5, here's how to do it:

http://ec.sei.cmu.edu/FMPro?-db=politicians.fp5&-format=search.htm&-view

This will display checkboxes in your HTML interface and allow you to edit the record (rather than replace its contents).

If you get an error indicating that you don't have permission to edit the file, look at every field in your DB (even if you don't use it in the Web interface) and check to see if any of them have "prohibit modification of value" checked. If so, uncheck that to see if that makes a difference.