Newbie Help - Dealing with imported and new data

[adambern]

Any ideas:

I've finally ditched PC for mac. I'm still using (for the moment) Virtual PC for Mac and MS Access but I want to move fully to FM8.

My problem. I've exported my Access data via ODBC into FM8. Some Tables are fine as they're standalone. But I'm having real problems with linked tables. I can easily get linked tables to show information from all appropriate (imported) tables, but the whole thing falls over if I try to add new data. By this I mean that I can see all of the old imported data but new records will not populate those imported fields. And vice versa - I can add new records by defining new fields and populate those new fields but I cannot see the 'old' data.

For example in my 'stock' table, I have ID fields for Articles (adid), Magazines (magid), and Writers (writeid). My stock table links to Magazines, Writers and Adapts to pull over the detail Stock needs as each of these tables has the fields I mentioned earlier plus other more detailed information.

So, with these links I can see the old data perfectly, but if I try to add new records the data from the linked tables doesn't appear.

I hope I'm clear with this - it's all getting a little technical now.

Any ideas? I'm reading "Filemaker Pro 8 The Missin g Manual" but I'm still lost.

I've attached the file - I've had to remove most of the data since it contains personal information.

NewDB_copy.fp7.zip

Edited December 2, 2005 by Guest

[T-Square]

Welcome!

Some starting points: Your sample has no data in most of the files, and the Categories table is completely missing, which makes evaluation really tough. Moreover, to get help from the forums, you ought to tell us more of what you're trying to accomplish.

That said, let me try to help: the Import process brings your data in; how that data gets interpreted and implemented is what the interface (as defined by layouts and scripts) must do--and that's what you have to do here.

Presumably, you're going to want to enable clients to enter information about the various entities you have in your tables, in some meaningful and intuitive way. That requires you to build some layouts that incorporate data-aware form controls (such as dropdown lists) so that your clients can select IDs derived from the related tables. I include a copy to see quickly what I mean. I added a WriteID control to allow entry of writer IDs in the Adapts layout. It also means (usually) writing scripts that provide automated actions and linking those scripts to buttons on your layouts.

Without more information, I'm guessing.

David

NewDB_copy.fp7.zip