I created a lovely (OK, more functional than pretty) layout, which looks great in Preview mode, but obviously Preview mode does not allow data to be edited. How do I allow another user to see this nice, sorted layout and edit records without forcing them to use the Browse mode where only a single record shows at a given time (of thousands of records in total) in its current state?

Is there an easy way to use a Preview layout in Browse mode, to make managing records easier? I tried choosing this specific layout in Browse mode, but that still just shows one record at a time.

Welcome to the Forums, dabbler19!

Create a new layout and select columnar list or table views. This will allow viewing and modifying multiple records in one view.

Or switch your layout to View As List (under View, in Browse mode).

Thanks for the friendly welcome!

I have tried this, but the first issue is that it does not seem to sort the way that the Preview mode layout does?

Secondly, is there any way to get a nice Preview layout to work in Browse mode as well, aside from the long listing of all records -or- only a single record in the nice layout format (Form view) I created in Preview mode?

Preview mode or Browse mode - it's still the same layout. The same sorting applies to both, and you can sort records at any time in both modes. Preview mode will also show sub-summary parts and conform to page settings - and that's about all the difference.

Perhaps you can post a screenshot of the layout in Layout Mode, with the part names streached out, so we can see what's going on.

The difference in effect may be small, but the resulting difference in viewing/editing is huge between the two. Is there no happy medium between all records in a long table/list or only a single record in a form view? Here's my file (uploaded). I'm on my Mac right now, with v6 and the file is from the Windows v7, so I .zip'ed it - sorry about that.

Perhaps then I need to be able to show the "Account" field in Browse mode. Right now it is a sort field in a layout that I made with the Wizard, and so it was moved to be a header and so it does not seem to show in Browse mode?

The perfect solutioin would be to be able to edit in Preview mode somehow...if I can't get Browse to look the same as Preview!

Which layout are we talking about?

Sorry, there should only be two? If so, "Haskin Totals" layout. If not, try the newly-attached instead, and my apologies!

That layout contains a sub-summary part, summarizing each account with a page-break in-between.

To get something like this in Browse mode, I'd suggest you use a portal.

Portal? I don't suppose it's any easier to convert a Preview Layout to be a Portal? Looking these up, it seems I will have to start from scratch. Before I start doing this, should I make a whole new layout, b/c it appears that changes I make while the current layout is "selected" will flow over to Preview of this layout?

It sure would be nice if the reverse were true, or there was a simple way to convert a layout to a portal with an FMPro builtin utility, or just tell it to show the Browse the same way it shows the Preview. My layout is not that complicated.

Otherwise, this layout (Wizard-generated) also slid the ACCOUNT field up into a header, so it is invisible in the Browse mode. How would I go about showing it in Browse mode but keep the Preview the same? Let me guess...make a whole new layout/portal as well?

Grrr...

It's not that complicated. I have made an example for you. I don't really know what you're trying to do here, so it may not be exactly what you want, but it shows the principle.

Note that I have changed ACCOUNT to text type - what you have there are NOT numbers!

dbl.fp7.zip

Ah, very nice!

Thanks! I see it is a separate layout, but I guess it is not that difficult. I like the pop-up, which is just as well as the page breaks! Yes, the DB is in a bad state (this copy is even worse with my messing around with it). It was a munged export/import from an old DOS program "Q&A" to FMPro. I happened to mention FMPro b/c I used it ages ago with v4.x, but back then we never used FMPro's layouts and interface itself, but rather CDML on a web-enabled DB...

As the IT guy, it fell on me to fix this after the fact (and personally keep FMPro from getting unfairly blamed for the conversion "problems"). They'd still be using Q&A if the XP SP2 upgrades hadn't finally killed it (it wouldn't even launch anymore).

I thought the behavior of the record slider/page-turner was interesting in the portal. It increases, but still shows the same records. I'll just have to tell them to ignore those bits for editing (new portal), and just use them for Preview (original layout).

You've been a world of help!

Thanks!

If you had a separate table for Accounts, you could browse between Accounts and see the related info for each in the portal. As it is now, the selected Account is a global, so flipping between records has no effect. In order to not confuse the users, you can keep the status area hidden, and only show it for previewing a print.

The more I work with the portal, the more confused it seems. If I choose to add a new record, it gets lost in the Accounts portal view, as there is no pop-up entry for a blank/"empty set" account. Where is the "THIS ACCOUNT" table to which it refers? How do I add a totally new account #? I'm not sure this actually solves the problem of being able to use my original, nice layout to enter NEW and edit existing records. If you can create a beautiful layout for Preview mode, you'd think you could just tell FMPro to use the same layout for Browse mode. I'm wondering if recommending FMPro was just a mistake...it may be too much DB for what we're trying to accomplish?

So, if I just want to show certain fileds on Preview mode, but hide them in Browse mode or vice-versa, how would I go about doing that? For instance, in Preview mode, everything looks great as is, but if I switch to Browse mode, I lose the Account header field (actaully all sub-summary info. vanishes, which seems to be a missing feature rather than useful behavior), and so I'd need to be able to SEE IT in Browse mode to add/edit it. Unfortunately, it seems that to do this I just need to create a whole new layout, unless there's a way to selectively show/add a column in one mode but not the other? Otherwise, now I'm writing scripts to replace missing functionality. It looks like we're back to square one and having to write separate layouts for every minor change that needs to occur just between view modes. Seems silly for such a powerful DB to not be able to more readily WYSIWYG between modes, instead of forcing users to duplicate efforts.

I've said before that I don't know what you're trying to to accomplish, so I cannot advise on that.

You should probably create a separate table for Accounts. Right now, you only have one table, therefore "ThisAccount" cannot be anything else but another occurance of it (a so called self-join).

At the risk of repeating myself, FMP does use the same layout in Browse mode and Preview mode. But you have added a Preview-specific feature to the layout, namely a page break between Accounts. There are no pages on a computer screen, which is what you use in Browse mode.

You can still achieve the same effect either by using a portal, or by finding only records that belong to a specific account (a Go To Related Record (show related only) script step can do this for you automatically).