I have about 20 layouts using 10 tables with an average of 20 fields per table. What I'm wanting is the ability to go to a single layout, (search layout) and be able to perform a search for information from one or two fields.

I have about eight different name fields, I have caller's name, victim's name, defendant's name and so on. I'm thinking I can make a calculation field that auto enters all the eight field contents into one field which I can search. My second field would be a more generic field and contain comment fields, narrative fields, and just about anything else with the exception of dates and times. The second field would operate the same but deal with much more information. I'm thinking we do much more searches for names than anything else, so limiting the name search will keep it more streamline and faster. (hoping)

Now that I've bored you to tears with my rambling, here's the jucy part. Dealing with the name search, I want to be able to perform a find and from the find screen, go directly to the found name on the layout the name is located on, weather on a related table or not. Then be able to go to the next occurance of the found name on what ever layout it happens to be found on. And so on and so on.

Any takers?

I don't go much for the "put all the fields together" idea. If you're going to script this, and you should, then you can enter your criteria in a global field, then set it into whatever field(s) you want, in whatever tables, during the Finds. These fields are in different tables anyway. The biggest problem is not passing the criteria and doing the searches. It's displaying the results from several different tables. Where?

I see 2 methods. The first is to use the Copy All Records technique to capture the IDs of the found sets in each table, then paste those into separate global fields in a central "viewing" table. Each global becomes a multi-line key back to its original table, displaying the found set in a portal.

But that's 10 tables, 10 portals; though I find it hard to believe that you'd be searching for a name in 10 different tables of entities. You cannot show them in one portal, without flattening your structure, which I think is a mistake.

Another (wild and crazy) method would be to do the Finds in each table, then open the result as a new window, before returning to the original window, and another table for the next Find. I've not done this yet (I haven't had that many tables to search :-). It seems like it would be a good technique if you have a lot of tables, and fair sized found sets. I don't know that a name search would produce more than a few hits however. Kind of silly to open a window for 2 list view records.

The biggest problem with this method is handling the windows. You can't really arrange 10 windows so you can see them all. You could arrange a few. Then you need a clear way to close all the extras, from the original, or you've got quite a mess.

I'd go with the portals on a central layout. I know that works well.

Okay