Need guidance on field display techniques

[K1200]

As I continue to work my way through the FMP 8 feature set (I've had good success using portals on tabbed layouts), I find myself stalled on a couple of fairly fundamental issues:

What FMP features exist to display a sequence of fields from successive records in individual fields on a layout WITHOUT using a portal?

What is a "recommended" way to delete a specific group of records once they have been selected and displayed in a portal?

Given all the power available with portals, I feel I'm just missing the FMP features for the above. I've attached a simple database example and would appreciate some guidance in these two areas.

Thanks in advance.

WinTest2.fp7.ZIP

[Genx]

im a bit confused what you want for the viewing the successive records but i assume you mean you want to view them as a list... just go view and hit list... it will repeat the body over and over again with successive records...

... "recommended" way... none really... the way i recommend it though is to add a done field into the related table... just make it a checkbox and attach it to a value list called yes... and then.. make a button "delete selected" or something... anyway, attach this button to a script akin in some way to the following...

Allow user abort [off]

Set Error Capture [On]

Goto Related Record ["relatedtable"; any layout attached to this table occurance]

enter find mode []

set field ["relatedtable"::done; "yes"]

constrain found set []

delete all records

goto layout [your original layout]

one more thing... "relatedtable"... is your related table,

genx

Edited February 1, 2006 by Guest

[Genx]

oh right... chuck in a freeze window after set error capture [on]

[K1200]

I appreciate the quick response, but I have to admit that I'm thoroughly confused by the answer (I'm brand new at FMP) so let me try to clarify my request:

In Question 1 on my sample database, I want to be able to display three or four specific records from a group of records out to the side of a portal that displays all records from the group. Say that the portal is showing all participants in a contest, then the fields out to the side might show the names of those with the three highest scores -- or some other "lookup request" entered by a user viewing the layout. Deciding which records to display beside the portal will be a combination of user entry and a calculation. But let's say for simplicity's sake that I just want to display records 2, 5 and 7 from the table. What is a good way to do that?

For my Question 2, adding an item to the table, then setting and testing it seems to be a long way around. I already have the records identified -- they're displayed right there as current results in the portal. I just want to delete the records already selected/displayed. An even simpler question is: how to delete ALL records from a table? -- in other words, clear a table.

As I said in my original post, these seem to me to be very basic questions. Yet I feel lost in the fog of FMP features. Any additional guidance will be greatly appreciated.

[K1200]

I just found and tested the answer to my Question 2. A "clear table" search of the forums turned up this response last August from Stanley:

"Clearing a table is fairly simple, and you can do it manually or via a script. Doing it manually is this simple:

1. Go to a layout which shows records from the table in question.

2. Go to Records->Show All Records.

3. Go to Records->Delete All Records.

You will get a dialog box asking if you really want to do this. Be sure you've got the right table before continuing.

You can write a script to do the same, and it would have the exact same three steps in it; you can set the Delete All Records script step to function without the dialog box for ease of use, but it's obviously a fairly dangerous script to leave lying around."

So my Question 1 is all that's remaining for me to be able to make some good forward progress with FMP.

[Kent Searight]

What FMP features exist to display a sequence of fields from successive records in individual fields on a layout WITHOUT using a portal?

As aflgenx suggested earlier, view your records in a list view. Typically you'd want to create a layout specifically for this view.