As one who works more in dynamic web design, I often return to Filemaker expecting to find in the Filemaker interface some of the dynamic layout features of, say, PHP include (or even a frameset).

What I miss is being able to make, say, a menu bar of buttons with their links and have them appear in a number of other layouts. When I change one page, all pages should reflet that change automatically.

I have experimented with convoluted merge values for buttons and their labels - but found them all wanting.

As I embark on a big new upgrade of a 4-year-old database, I am ever more conscious of the need for elegance (in the economic sense).

Has anyone any brilliant suggestions?

Steve

A method I use is a button bar with 10 buttons. A Navheader global text repeating field with individual repetitions placed on the 10 buttons each with a transparent backgroud so the the text in the repeating field sits on top of the button. Set the layout up so that field frames do not show when the record is active.

These buttons are all "goto layout in window" buttons so I also have two more repeating fields with 10 repetitions NavWindows and NavLayout. All buttons are attached to the same script and run the script with a parameter which gives the repetition number of the button that has been clicked. The script then extracts the window and layout names from the NavWindows and NavLayout fields and does the navibgating. Each new layout gets a copy of the button bar across the top. All alterations to the button bar are made in a single settings layout which exposes the three repeating fields.