Hi there. Sorry to make my first post be an annoying request for help, but I am stymied here.

I created a Filemaker 7 database. It's a simple list of items, each of which has some data (file containers, text fields, etc...) associated with them. They also have a category associated with them.

So, the relationship I have is that the Items table relates its Category field to the Categories table's Category field. A many to one relationship. Looks like this:

Items::Category >-- Categories::Category

I have it set to allow the creation of related fields in the Categories table.

The problem is, when I enter a new value in the Items::Category field, it doesn't create a corresponding record in Categories! I did this all the time in Filemaker 6 without any trouble, and according to the documentation, this should work fine.

I've also tried this in a test database with just two tables each of which has a single field in a one-to-one relationship with each other. Same problem. Creating a record in one doesn't affect the other. Portals, however, work fine.

Is this behavior the rest of you are seeing or is this a bug on my end? Running Filemaker 7.0v3. Already tried dumping preference files and I JUST installed the update. Should be a very clean start.

Thanks in advance for any and all assistance.

Putting data into the key field (Items::Category) does not create a related record. But if the key exists, you could create a related record by typing into a related field on the layout. I don't imagine this will make sense in your system because the key is what you are entering.

I would recommend navigating to a Category layout to create a Category record, or using a script to create a related record if one doesn't already exist.

I could swear it used to work differently in Filemaker 6. But it's good to know that I'm not seeing a bug at least.

Where I'm confused is in the documentation, under the header Adding and duplicating related records

You can add records to a related table when you enter data in a record in the current table...

Add a record in a related table: If the related field is in a portal, type data into the field in the last row of the portal. If the related field isn't in a portal, type data into the field, then press Enter.

Seems as though the behavior I'm looking for is what's expected.

In any case, I managed to get the records to create themselves using an EventScript based on a calculation of whether the related record exists in the Categories layout. Since I'm using FileMaker Mobile as well, I'll need to repeat that same process after import. Whee!

Thanks for your help!

If the relationship is set to "allow creation of related records" then the last row of the portal will be an embryonic related record. An entry into any of the fields in the portal will cause the fertilisation and birth of the new related record to occur automatically and almost instantaneously. No need to event plugins of scripting... this is basic FMP 3 stuff.

What ultimately fixed this was to put the Category::Category field in the layout. Then the relationship is automatically created when I enter anything into that field. What fun!