Date Fields

[Calantha]

I have many date fields, for instance:

Start Date September 05, 2005

I am referencing them using <>

How come if the date is set to be displayed as above it is being displayed as 09/05/05 where it is referenced?

Not all instances are displaying this way, only some. I am confused.

[Slobey]

Each instance of a field has its own field formatting criteria. For each one, you must right click on the field and choose date format, then format it the way you like

[Calantha]

But I am not referencing them using fields. It is merely text that references the fields

i.e. I have a field called Start Date and it is currently holding September 05, 2005

In another layout in text it says:

This year's start date will be <>.

The actual field it is referencing is formatted properly and shows up correctly on some, but not on all.

[comment]

As Slobey said, the formatting you have applied is NOT applied to the field itself. It is applied only to a specific instance of the field on a specific layout.

After merging a date field in a text object, select the text object and apply the desired date format by choosing Format -> Date.

[-Queue-]

I answered this here also.

Please do not double post. If you wanted to start a new topic for this question, you could have deleted the question about it in the other thread.

[Calantha]

Thank you for your answers.

I will apologize again for my double post.

[Calantha]

Another questions regarding dates.

I have a field called "Current Date" which holds the calculation Status(CurrentDate) in order to use the current date in other calculations as well I use this field in letter heads.

For some reason the CurrentDate is always the last time I used the program and is for some reason not updating each time I open the database.

I'm not sure if this would have anything to do with it, but the database is being run off a regular computer server.

Any ideas?

[Calantha]

It seems the calculations work properly using the CurrentDate but the fields which hold the 'calculation' "Status(CurrentDate)" just do not update on the layouts...

[RalphL]

Make your calculation which uses Status (Current Date) unstored. Then it will calculate when needed.

[Fenton]

Be aware that making Status (CurrentDate) unstored, which you must do if you want it to update properly, will make ALL calculations using that field unstored also (which they also must be if you want them to update properly).

There is also the Today function, which can remain stored, but which causes other problems, like it must update itself when the file starts up; which it must do every morning or it will be off. This takes quite a while on large files. (Today is no longer in FileMaker 7.)

Or you can roll your own "today" plain date field, and run a foolproof routine, looping through all records to update it every morning (or test and run when necessary). Also takes quite a while. And, unless you take precautions, messes up any Modification Date field.

The best solution is to rethink your design regarding date-sensitive calculations and operations. Do not rely so much on building date-sensitive flags into calculations, at least not into fields that must be stored (since they won't work there anyway). If you do, use them only for display, preferably on form view layouts, where the processing time to update the unstored calculation will be minimal. Do not use them for Finds.

Use Finds to present the records which match the conditions instead. "Find Invoices Due", etc.. Do your Finds directly on the relevant stored date fields, not in unstored calculations using Status(CurrentDate).

[Calantha]

Oh thank you! That absolutely did the trick!