Data Entry vs Find Layouts....

[agtjazz]

??? I may have misunderstood and misspoke--- and now I am really confused and would really appreciate being informed on the best practices….

I have a main menu- with Data Entry, Query, Reports and Maintenance

I am in the process of changing the Data Entry screen so that you cannot do a find on this layout. Is that the best practice? What if a user wants to find a person and edit the record?

On the Query, the user puts in the criteria and the find comes up in a table view—but she sees an error and wants to fix the salary or something. Do I link the find results to the data entry field? What is the best practices or what do you recommend?

Thanks for helping me get things straight and orderly.

[Fitch]

There is no one right way to make a user interface. FileMaker has created a product that makes searching fairly easy, but requires a little bit of training for users. Your life as a developer will be easier the more you can stick to the "FileMaker way" of doing things. That means, don't lock down fields on the data entry screen, let users search there if they want to do so.

That said, it's often the case that we need to more tightly control the access to records or for whatever reason want to use a separate search layout. You haven't said why you want to do this; I'd think twice unless you have a specific reason to do it. Once you head down this road, you have to be prepared to handle errors and script navigation in a logical way.

What happens if the user enters no criteria or invalid criteria? (Show all records? Show a dialog?)

What happens if no records are found? (Show all records? Show a dialog?)

What happens if only one record is found? (Go to data entry/detail layout.)

What happens when more than one is found? (Go to list layout.)

I'd use a list layout rather than a table, since you can put a button on the record in a list that takes you to the data entry layout. In a table you're limited to buttons in the header.

Have a look at some of the examples on FileMaker.com and that will give you a pretty good idea of standard practices.