Making a Forum in FileMaket

[Salesman0Gil]

Hello,

I working on a little pet project it is going to be my companies web site, for employees only, that uses all the filemaker data we as an originization have accumalted over the years.

I want to make a forum for my field staff (200). I don't need to bother with different catergories and such, that can develop in time.

I have a couple of begining concepts, but I wnted to see how other people would go about it.

Currently I have two tables, one is going to be th ehome of the "Post", and the other table will hold the replies.

One of the biggest hurdles I'm running in to is the need for infinite replies. I was thinking about truncating each reply in to a text field, and seperated by a carriage return or other text.

Any Ideas?

Edited January 23, 2007 by Guest

[Salesman0Gil]

I think I finally wrapped by brain enough around it!

Have a record in the "post" in the post table, then for every reply add a record in the "reply" table.

Then create a portal in the "Post" table listing the replies from the "Reply" table.

This could easily become a multi-layered forum, by adding tables for each sub-catergory.

[David McQueen]

I think I finally wrapped by brain enough around it!

Have a record in the "post" in the post table, then for every reply add a record in the "reply" table.

Then create a portal in the "Post" table listing the replies from the "Reply" table.

This could easily become a multi-layered forum, by adding tables for each sub-catergory.

Why do you need more than one table. Label records post or reply, time and date stamp them and self relate them by topic. If there are sub tipics you could self relate through there to have a series of portals to dig down.

Also, does it have to be web. If they have filemaker already., why not just a networked file?

Just a few random thoughts.

Dave

[Salesman0Gil]

It has to be Web, because my field staff does nto have Filemaker.

To me I think using two tables gives it a cleaner feel. I wish I had better words for it.

If I kept in all one table, it could be difficult to manage say 50 replies to one port. Where having a reply table can almost just become a data holder, and the post table becomes the display table.