Building drill-down DB???

[bettsy]

Hi there.

Please excuse me if this is a dumb question, I'm outta my depth here. I'm a screenwriter and I'm trying to build a database for working out my stories. Here's what I need to do:

Any given story has a number of threads, each thread has a number of scenes and each scene is broken down into a number of beats.

I need to be able to keep track of which story-thread-scene I'm working on so that I can tie each level to those above and below it. I'd like to be able to do finds, sorts and print outs for a story, thread or scene without having to go through the whole family tree. It would also be good if I could end up with auto-entered serials for every scene number for a given story. I've tried using portals and repeating fields but I seem to be getting further away from it, not closer.

If anyone knows where I can find a tutorial to help me out I'd really appreciate it.

TIA. Bettsy

[bettsy]

Another thought. If there are any pros out there in Melbourne OZ, maybe we could work on this together and sell the result? I had built a rough version of this earlier and it makes writing a lot easier.

Cheers

Bettsy

[LelandLong]

I worked up a rough draft for you of how I saw your project from your description.

After you look it over, go to the Beats layout and add a new record. It'll show you a list of scenes to pick from. Choose one, give it a number and/or title.

Now if you go back to the Scenes layout you will see the related Beat in the proper Scene record.

Now add a new record while still in the Scene layout. It'll show you a list of stories to pick from. Choose one, give it a number and/or title.

Now if you go back to the Stories layout you will see the related Scene in the proper Story record.

Screenwriter.fp7.zip

Edited April 7, 2007 by Guest

[Fenton]

I turned on [x] "Allow creation of related records" in the relationships (on the child side), so that you could add a scene to a story, in the portal, also add it to create a beat for a scene. I added navigation arrows, so you can go either down or up the hierarchy.

I also turned on [x] "Delete related records" in the relationships which you may or may not want. If you delete a Story record it will automatically delete all its scenes and all its beats. Useful but dangerous.

We seem to have skipped Threads. But you can add its table. The term "threads" brings up the question, Does a "thread" belong to 1 and only 1 story? In which case it's a table below Story, same hierarchy as the others. Or can it belong to more than 1 story? If the later then you'd need a "join" table between threads and the other tables (which tables depends on what a thread actually is). In other words, is threads a separate, looser hierarchy than the others?

Screenwriter_fej.fp7.zip

[bettsy]

Hey there Leland and Fenton. You guys are amazing - and on Easter weekend and all! Thank you both so much.

Give me a couple days to fiddle with this, so I can see if it will work with my layouts (the graphic layout is key to the whole thing).

I'll get back soon.

Thanks again.

Cheers

Bettsy

[bettsy]

Thanks guys. I think I know where I was going wrong and now it's time to press onto the next hurdle. No doubt I'll pop up again with some other dumb question.

Thanks again.

Cheers

Bettsy