Hi All,

I think i missed the basics in "separation model"...

My goal was to have a User Interface file (UI) and a Data file.

I wanted to put a UI file on each user's computer all pointing to the same Data file...

Because of my design (perhaps faulty design) my data file has a few calculated fields that test a condition that uses a field that resides in a system table in the UI file.

When installing the UI file on different computers it seems that I must manually re-establish the link between UI & Data file by using the Menu choice "Define...File Refs.."

THAT'S NOT TOO BAD - I can live with it, unless there is a better way?

The problem i also have, is that I need to do the same "re-link" operation for my data file because it needs to access the global field that resides in the system table of the UI file.

How can i re-link one data file to many UI files??

On top of that each UI file may have a different value based on what that particular user has selected for the field that his accessed from the Data file.

Hope this is not too messy and it is understandle!!!

Thanks for the help

--Dan

If you have multiple GUI's and you need to modify a layout you then will have to do it multiple times. This essentialy defeats the purpose of having a networked database. Your GUI and DATA files should be on the same server or host. No GUI files on user machines. You do not need to share the folder the files are in. Use FileMakers built in networking. Clients (users) open the GUI file by opening FileMaker and choosing File>Open Remote... Or you can create an Opener File that is an empty database that only has a script that opens the GUI file and then closes itself. Set the file to run this opener script when it opens. Put this file on each users desktop.

If your global in the GUI works you could leave it that way but you should probably change your approach and perhaps use a script parameter instead. Your GUI file does not need to have any tables. Being able to pass script parameters in FileMaker 7 does away the need for a lot of globals. For your globals you can create a globals table in your DATA file and set up constant relationships to the other tables.

Hope this helps some.

Couldn't have said it better.

" For your globals you can create a globals table in your DATA file and set up constant relationships to the other tables." X relations is generally the way this is done in 7 AFAIK.

X relations is generally the way this is done in 7 AFAIK.

Yes, no more need for a "constant" key field in each file.

I have also been thinking about a deploying a separate GUI on each user's machine. My own reason is thatI would have expected a speed advantage over hosting the GUI and data on one machine. Less data down the wire. Or does Filemaker cache all the GUI once loaded the first time?

My solution is pretty mature by now, but if I were to any more layout designing I'd just be sending all users an update (GUI V3.01.2.)

I must admit that I am eventually to port the entire solution to a Delphi Desktop/Firebird server. For me, Filemaker has been and will always remain an excellent prototyping environment.

Comments eagerly awaited!

Steve