Getting record sets based on a specific field

[hamelekim]

I have a Dealer management system I am developing. I have a pop up box that lists contact names for manager, buyer, and installer. I have another form that allows the user to add all three of these, to a contacts table. I want to have only those people who are listed for a specific company (from the contacts table) show up in the pop up box on the Dealers screen, also sorting by installer, manager, and buyer depending on the popup box. I have done this sort of thing lots using php, access, c#, Java, etc... but this program just doesn't seem to be very user friendly. I can't find anything when it comes to these basic functions. If you can help me out with this it would be great. Also, can anyone give me a good book for filemaker pro. I want something more on the intermediate/advanced side of things since it seems those are the types of operations that I want to with this program.

[Kent Searight]

Are you trying to create a conditional value list?

To answer your question about a good source of info for FM7 - Using FileMaker 7 Special Edition, Que Publishing. In my opinion it is hands down the best reference source for version 7. A lot of the info will carry over into version 8 as well. There is not, unfortunately, anything quite as concise for version 8 at this time.

Finally, a comment on user friendliness. A lot of it depends on what you're used to. If you expect to develop databases in FileMaker the same way as in Access, you're going to be in for a lot of frustration. But if you step back and look at it objectively and keep an open mind to different approaches, you'll probably not only get up and running quicker but also might decide that FileMaker's reputation for being very user friendly is totally justified.