I have a titles/authors system in which one title may have many authors and one author may have many titles. I understand the concepts of the join file and record IDs. What I want to do is to have the user create a title, then fill in the authors via a portal. I'd like to have each portal row have a drop-down value list of authors because the authors database will have contact info. I'm having problems setting an author ID to a particular title ID in the join file.

I hope I explained my situation well enough. TIA.

KenL

The easiest way is going to be by allowing the relationship to create related records. When this happens, a blank portal row will appear in portals into that relationship. Then you can have a menu for the Author ID that has a value list showing the Authors' IDs and their names (since IDs would probably be useless to the user). Once you select an ID in this menu, the record should be added in the join file automatically.

Chuck