Problem printing with portals

[TomDia]

I am writing a royalty program for a small record company in filmmaker pro 7. I am having a problem printing portals.

I have two tables that have different royalty information for the same recording artist. Each table has several different records for each artist depending on how many different types of royalties they get. I have a third table that has a layout for a royalty statement for each artist that has a portal to table number one and a portal to table number two. Each portal line lists a royalty due. Since I don

[Anna Zoe]

Hi TomDia,

I am alsot relateiveley new to FM7 and am having pretty much the same problem. I have two portals in a layout of a third table and want 50 lines in each portal but want the 2nd portal to slide up to the bottom of the first portal when it prints and of course the next record to slide up to the bottom of the last portal of the previous record.

The issue I am having is that without a non sliding object between the two portals, the second portal doesn't print at all! Obviously with a non sliding object between the two, the 2nd portal doesn't slide regardless of it's settings because of the nonsliding object above.

Please help!!

[Anna Zoe]

TomDia,

I am begining to think that when the help file (in "Removing Blank Spaces form print outs") says "Portals slide like any other non-field object, but objects within a portal can't slide. If you specify that a portal slides up and the enclosing part shrink, FileMaker Pro omits empty portal rows" it really only means that the portal and part size will reduce to the number of rows but the portal itself won't actually slide up.

I have had to quite unsatisfactorily place my portals side by side on a landscaped layout so I don't have to worry about this anymore.

Hopefully tho, some knowledgable person will be able to correct me on this.

[DykstrL]

Unfortunately, portals were not designed to be printed - they don't behave well as you two have found out.

There is no easy answer. Most will suggest printing from the related file/table. Another option would be to import the related data into a global field and formatted to replicate the portal rows/records.

[swf]

I am having a similar problem trying to print out data that is nicely displayed in a portal. My latest approach is to take the current record and place the id number into a global field, then search the related table for the data. eg. I am working on patient 115. I need to set a global field to 115 and then search the medication table for all entries with patient 115. Hopefully then I can print the found set of all of the medications related to patient 115. However I am having trouble getting the global field to be set to the current record. for example when I switch from patient 114 to patient 115 I need the global field to update. Currently no such luck. Any ideas?

[Himitsu]

swf, you should just make a button on the layout that runs a set field(globalID; IDfield) then if you want you can run all the neccesary find commands in the same script. I use this to move over info from one table to the next. There always a problem when it comes to activating a script. The easiest way is just to have button.

As for the first problem, TomDia, you bascially want to create a layout with three parts. Header, subsummary sorted by artist ID and the body that contains the information that is related to that ID. Do you follow? The subsummary fields can be in different tables from the header or footer. You might want to try and play around with the layout wizard to make a report. Just today I had to design a printable reciept that would change length depending on how many products the customer bought. So I set the sub summary part to sort by sales ID and made a script that would

go to layout(reciept)

sort records(sales ID)

enter preview mode(pause)

print()

go to layout (sales)

enter browse mode()

if you don't set the sort records to the first sub summary sort, it won't show anything. Just give it a shot and see what you come up with.

[swf]

I have made some progress. I was able to place the id number of the patient I am working on into a global field. Then scripted to go into medication table and find all records related to the patient id. Same process to go into allergy table and find all the allergy records related to the patient id. Now I have two found sets of exactly what I want. final goal is to print a report with patient name at the top followed by a list of the allergy found set then a list of the medication found set. Do I need to create a subsummary report ( so far no success), should I copy all of the data and paste it. It seems like there should be an easier way to do this. It displays so nicely with two portals on a single layout. Why is printing the same thing so cumbersome?

[Himitsu]

to create a report, I think, is the best way and once you have the script right, exactly how you want it, it can speed up the process with just a click of a button on the patient you want to print the records. Like I said before, if you make a new layout, and make it a columnar list/report, on the next menu, select the "Report with Grouped Data". But make sure that you are getting records from the patient table. Now when you put the fields in, you have to put them in the correct order and you should take in mind the hiarchy of data. The top, of course, would be patient. But sometimes it is hard to see which is the parent data of what you are trying create. You can then select the fields from the different tables in the order you want them. Now this report will use the relationship you set that binds the tables together. So if you run the script from patient 343, and the relationship between the patient table and the allergy table is the patient ID, then it will show records only from patient 343. That is the beauty behind FMP7. Now it will ask you which order you want to show the records. Then I always let if poduce the script then I just add the little details after.

Just keep playing with it and remember that the scripts sort order has to match the sort orders of the sub summary parts of the layout you created. If not, then it will show some areas blank.