Tabbing locks up FMP

[K1200]

I've run into a situation with one of my applications that I can't find a way out of. FMP locks up solid when I tab off of the last field in a portal WHENEVER only one field in the portal row is editable AND there is no other field on the panel. The layout is a two-tab panel and each panel has a portal displaying specific rows of a table.

I've recreated the behavior in the simple attached example. The first tab displays rows 1-3 and the second tab displays rows 4-6. Each panel has one other field displayed above the portal. Using Set Tab Order, I define two tabs on the first panel and two on the second. Everything works fine.

When I remove the Current Total field on Data Set 2 (leaving only the portal) – OR just remove that field from the tab sequence – tabbing down the column of the portal works UNTIL I try to Forward Tab off of the last row. Then FMP locks up solid – apparently in an endless loop.

I really want to avoid having a dummy field on a panel just as a workaround; it will only confuse the users. Am I missing an obvious solution? Is this a flaw in FMP? Any help will be greatly appreciated.

BTW, I'm running Advanced 8.0v3

TabTest.fp7.ZIP

[John Mark Osborne]

Doesn't crash on FMA 8.0v3 for the Macintosh. Tried it on my Windows Box with FMA 8.0v1, 8.0v2 and 8.0v3 and couldn't get it to crash. You made an excellent test file with easy steps so I am guessing I didn't make a mistake. Have you tried your test on another computer? Might be a hardware or software conflict on the computer you are using.

[K1200]

Thanks for testing it. I don't have any other development PC to test with now, so I'll be looking forward to hearing from others.

Let me ask just to make sure: after deleting the Current Totals field, were you able to Forward Tab from the last portal row to the first portal row without a problem?

(BTW, I've repeated my tests with both runtime and development versions. The runtime does fail on other PCs.)

Edited May 19, 2006 by Guest

[Reed]

It did crash for me with FMP 8v3 on OS X 10.4.5. I'll try turning some other things off to see if I can isolate the problem...

[Oldfogey]

No problem here on XP SP2 and FMA 8 v.03.

Do you have SP 2 installed?

JMO, How do you get the three V8 updates on the one machine?

[K1200]

Yes, Winver = Version 5.1 (Build 2600.xpsp_sp2_gdr.050301-1519 : Service Pack 2)

[John Mark Osborne]

I hadn't updated my Windows machine because I basically don't use it that often. So, as I was updating it, I decided to test it under each version.

[margita]

I had exactly the same problem as you in my database. I found your topic, downloaded your test file and as soon as I removed the field above the portal, it locked FMPRO when I tabbed into the last row of the portal with nowhere else to go.

I have Windows XP Professional with SP2.

Have you been able to solve the problem? Can anybody else shed light on this?

[K1200]

Thanks for confirming the problem. The only workaround I've found is to have a tiny dummy field (included in the layout's tab order) located below the portal. Mine are in 6-point font and contain the word "end" in case the user ever bothers to look. Tabbing then becomes circular, as you would expect.

I plan to submit the example file to FileMaker and trust they will fix the problem in a future release.

[SteveB]

I haven't experienced the problem you talk about, but I've used dummy fields both within portals and on tabs. You can make the field 1 px by 1 px and set it to be non-enterable and still have it in the tab order.

Steve

[margita]

Thanks very much. I will give it a go. It is good that you will report this bug to FileMaker.