Dividing (1) layout into 4 page views

[Jarvis]

I'm building a database for my cabinet shop.

I have a lot of different types of cabinets and each cabinet has several possible views.

I would like to keep all the views per cabinet on one layout.

My goal is to navigate the layout via buttons.

If you wanted a plan view, hit the plan view button.

If you wanted a side section, hit the side section button.

I would like to be able to pan to that part of the layout and have it fill my entire monitor screen.

Each panned area would roughly accord with one page per for printing purposes.

What I have tried so far is to take 4 fields and park one in each corner of the layout.

I have scripted buttons that GO TO FIELD 1, GO TO FIELD 2 etc.

THIS IS MY QUESTION: How do I go to a field and make that field location constitute the upper left corner of a page break?

What I mean is, I would like that field location to represent the upper left corner of what is visible on my screen when I hit the appropriate script button.

I hope somebody can help me here and I thank you if you can.

Jarvis

[Vaughan]

My I suggest you thinking is word-prosseing mode, not FMP mode.

Layouts are your friends.

Make a layout for each full-size image you want to display. The make a script/button that switches to this layout to view the image. You'll then need some navigation method to return to the "main" screen but that's not difficult at all. A simple script/button will do.

[Leader]

I'm still fuzzy on the details, but can you click turn the 4 images into buttons and then, using the above suggestion, go to the appropriate layout?

(It is also possible to fake clickable areas by defining transparent buttons, but they are the devil to work with if your layout isn't complete.)

[Jarvis]

I know how to navigate the way that you guys are advocating, and perhaps I should.

The reason I contemplate dividing a single layout into four areas is the sheer size of my project.

I have 32 possible base cabinet permutations.

Each cabinet has five drawings tied to it.

Just the base cabinets alone would require 160 different layouts.

I was hoping to simplify navigation via defining different parts of the page for different views.

Thanks,

Jarvis

[comment]

How about this:

Put the drawings of each cabinet (record) in a repeating field, and overlay each repetition with a button. Clicking on a repetition will take you to a second layout, where the selected drawing is shown full-screen.

[MoonShadow]

Jarvis,

How about using Windows. Maybe you can consider using only one layout and filling it with a global container. Since you are clicking a script to activate which drawing you want, script can Open New Window, set the global container with the drawing selected and give you your full size view. I've seen Bob Weaver and Ray Cologon both use this type of technique successfully but I've never needed to try it.

You can even determine where you want the window if only panned top left. Use script parameter on your buttons as 1, 2, 3 and 4. Then script four window placement scripts which set the size and location of the new window. Your script would then respond as: If Get(ScriptParameter) = 1, Perform Script [ Pan Top Left] ... etc. - just use four global layouts in case you want all four opened simultaneously.

Where/how are your drawings stored? It just seems that one layout and a global field can handle all your views for you since each drawing view is of the same data type. Even jumping to your small field (container?), copying, open window and pasting into global. I'm unsure if you would lose some quality in the resizing though. Just a thought ...

[Vaughan]

Ok, think of layouts as a template.

How many different templates do you need to display the images? Maybe two or three will suffice.

Create some scripts to swap between layouts and fields to display the images.

[Jarvis]

Thanks guys!

I will cognitate on these approaches.

Jarvis

[comment]

I have no idea what "cognitate" means, but perhaps the attached sample might help you do it.

cabinets.fp7.zip

[Lee Smith]

I would guess that Jarvis meant concatenate.

Lee

[-Queue-]

Or cogitate.

[Lee Smith]

I like your's better.

[comment]

I knew that - I was merely being flacetious.

[Jarvis]

You guys just don't appreciate metric spelling.