Globals not Saving

[chevell]

Help! I had a set of global text fields that were working fine and then I added a set of Global container fields and now neither of them will save their values when i close the databases. I tried deleted them all and making just one new text global and it still won't save. What happened?

[comment]

[quote name=FMP Help > Creating a database > Setting options for fields > Defining global fields (fields with global storage)]If your file is shared, only the host's changes to global field data are saved.

[chevell]

It is shared through Filemaker Server 7. The globals used to work!

[Ted S]

Chevell,

Take a look at this paper:

http://www.foundationdbs.com/Downloads/WhitePaperForFMPNovices.pdf

Page 3 is about the behaviour of global fields. It *MAY* answer your question.

[Echo33029]

Globals do not get saved when they are being served by FM Server or FMP. The way to do this is to take the file offline from the server, open it in standalone mode, put whatever values you want to into the globals and then put the file back onto the server. In this way the values you save in the globals while it is in standalone mode will be saved. This is probably what happened the last time you edited the globals and it worked, but you probably didn't realize it. You must have been doing development offline from server mode.

Echo

[chevell]

Thanks for confirming that. I was *just* about to try that meyself. What a pain! Good thing my solution has static globals!

[Echo33029]

Actually this is a great feature and not a "pain". In an multi-user scenario each user can have their own values for a global field without impacting other users. There are many instances where this is useful. In the case where you need a static global, you also have that option by doing what was described above.

Many developers find this feature very useful once they understand how it works.

Echo