Unable to move field without duplicating it

[Philip Jenks]

Anyone know why, when I try to move a field or object on a layout by clicking and dragging, it duplicates itself and I end up moving the duplicate, leaving the original field irritatingly where it is? I've just returned to using Filemaker after a break of 2 years and I don't remember this happening before. I thought it only duplicated if you did Option-drag. Grateful for any advice.

[Lee Smith]

Is this a recent development?

Do you have the latest version of FMP5?

Have you rebuilt your desktop Lately?

Have you toss your Finder Preferences Lately?

HTH

Lee

[Ender]

Maybe your option key is being held down (is something on your keyboard?) Option-Drag is a shortcut for duplicating layout objects. If there's nothing on the keyboard and it's still happening, use the Key Caps application to see if the computer thinks the option key is down. Could be a bad keyboard.

[Philip Jenks]

Hi Lee, Ender

Thanks for the ideas. It doesn't seem to be the keyboard holding down the Option key. I've tested and that's not happening.

I'm running Filemaker Pro 5 .0V1 on a Mac. The Mac has OSX on it, but also OS9 which is what I'm running FPro on. I've only just returned to Filemaker after a year or so, so can't really describe it as a 'recent' problem. It surfaced the moment I started using the files.

Hmm . . I'll keep trying. Thanks anyway.

Philip

Lee - I'm not sure how to rebuild the desktop. Can you advise?

[Lee Smith]

You have to restart the machine. During the start up, you have to hold down the Option and Command Keys together. Keep them held down until you get a dialog box that says, Do You Want to Rebuild the Desktop of MacintoshHD (or what ever you name for your Hard Drive is), Click on okay and take a coffee break. If you have any other disks in either a drive or on the SCSI chain, it will ask about them one by one after the MacintoshHD has been done. You can say cancel for those if the FileMaker Application doesn't reside on one of them.

Lee

[Fenton]

You are probably running FileMaker in Classic mode. It was usually a pain, depending on the version of OS X and FileMaker. But generally I'd say you need to either upgrade one or both. Or start up in OS 9. That will solve the problem immediately. But then you have to reboot into X if you need it.

Classic and FileMaker 5 was a bad combo on earlier versions of OS X. I don't really know about later versions. I never really ran Classic, partly for the reason you're mentioning; or FileMaker 5.0 for long, 5.5 was better, as is 6. 7 is amazing, but has its little glitches still, and only runs on X.

Is 5.0v1 the highest? Is there a 5.0v2 or higher?

And do what Lee says. Rebuilding the Desktop is basic maintenance for OS 9. Should be done once a month, at least once a year, or whenever icons, file opening, etc., become odd. Finder Preferences (and General Preferences) are also notorious for causing problems. But I doubt that will fix your problem.

[Lee Smith]

I have 5.0v3

[Philip Jenks]

Fenton and Lee

Thanks very much for the suggestions. I will try them out now.

Philip