Creating fields "on the fly"

[SMM]

Hello,

I must have missed something: Can't FM create new fields on the fly? E.g., I have a field, SWCourses, that displays a "checkbox-able" list of s/w course names. What I'd like FM to do is when a user checks an item, a new field, SWblank(n), where n is the item name, appears next to the item that was checked. THAT field has five values. So it might look like this:

X C programming O O O O O

C# programming

X Java programming O O O O O

X PHP programming O O O O O

Any help is appreciated. I don't see what I'm missing.

Thanks.

Steve

[Genx]

What FileMaker version/s are you actually running on?

[SMM]

Hi,

I'm using FM Pro Advanced 8.5; Windows XP Pro.

Steve

[Genx]

This should help

relatedExample.zip

[SMM]

Thank you very much for that simple demo file! I think I was considering a more complicated way of doing something that I guess can't be done. One question, though: How could I prevent someone from selecting the same course twice or more?

Thanks again.

Steve

[Genx]

One way would be to create a auto enter text field that uses a combination of the personID and the courseID to create a unique key... then just set the validation settings to be unique.

My explanation unfortunately can only be as good as what you've given me, in this case four rows of data that all store basically the same information... In this sort of situation, we use the concept of relational databases...

Database programs don't let you generate fields on the fly (not in the conventional sense anyway).

Edited February 28, 2007 by Guest

[SMM]

Thanks, Genx. I'm not sure I understand your idea here.

In reality, my application has 50 or so different course names. So, I didn't want to create 50 or more individual fields---one for each course name---in which the student would indicate his proficiency stage, 1 through 5. My thought was that when a student clicked a course name, the proficiency field would automatically pop up, prompting the student to enter 1 through 5.

Thanks for any clarifications you might have.

Steve

[Inky Phil]

I think that you have to get your concept settled in your head before anyone can really help you.

What I THINK you need is 1 record for each course.

Each record would have 1 field for the course name and one field for the proficiency. If you have that simple structure then of course Filemaker can then create records on the fly ( not fields as you first asked)

How you then link these records to the student is the next thing that you want to get settled in your mind but we will need a little more info to help you with that

HTH

Phil

[Søren Dyhr]

Without reading Alex and Phils replies prooperly, should you perhaps consider this approach:

http://www.filemakermagazine.com/secured/513/DataTagging_full.mov

--sd

[SMM]

Thanks for that idea. I need to study that some more.

SM

[SMM]

Thanks for the helpful link. Interesting concept; I need to study that some more.

SM

[Genx]

I don't understand your issue... just add a scroll bar to your portal, then you can have 5000 subjects per student or 1...

[T-Square]

Søren--

You've linked to a subscriber-only resource. It seems to me that you shouldn't do that, as it doesn't really help people who don't subscribe to that magazine (like me).

Steve--

You should be able to get what you want using a join table...

David

Edited February 28, 2007 by Guest
Why reinvent the wheel?

[SMM]

Thanks for the detailed help, David. I'll try that.

Best,

Steve