i am very new to this, using FileMaker Pro 6, on a Mac

i have two documents, one which has all the details of every class that i am running, and one document that needs to be connected to it. when i select a class name on the second document, all the details should pop up, but i can't figure out how to make it work. help!

Because you are so new, you will likely have many more questions, even if you answer this one. I found the best way to get into it is to read the "Designing and creating databases" section from the "Contents" section of the Filemaker help file. It will ensure that you build this correctly, from the ground up and save many hours of misery.

In lay terms, what you have to do to get your second page to talk to the first is create a relationship between the two so they can talk. (do a help seearch on "creating relationships") You do this by joining together two fields that have matching values. In your case, the field in your class file would be like a keyhole and the field in your other file would be like a key. Whenever your second file uses the key, it will open one or many records that have a matching keyhole.

If you want the other file to see all the classes from the first file, all at one time, you need to make sure the value of the keyhole field for each class record, is the same value.

Technically this means creating a calculation field called "constant" in the class file and give it a number value of "1". Then create the exact same thing in the other file. In the other file this would be like having a master key which opens all the records because they all have the same number. This is only the beginning. You should now be able to create a value list in the second file to show all of the classes at one time. In order to use the data from classes, you are going to have to create a few more fields which will be explained in the help instructions.

I know this may all be confusing at first but be patient and a step at a time, you will get there. Just make sure you get the foundation right.

Good Luck!

try these videos

http://www.filemaker.com/products/fmp/video_tutorials.html

the top right video should get you where you want to be.