Fourth Column in Define Database

[m.v.peabody]

It would be nice to have a column in Define DB to show which layouts each field is associated with. I submit this one to you, which is a work in progress, and you can see why.

As is customary, the customer tells us what they want, and shows us what they are currently using. We tell them our FMP database is stronger, better and faster, and set about proving it. (This customer actually did a very good job of letting us know what they wanted.) Anyway, a few weeks/revisions later, we're still working on improvements and have a ton of fields and 60 pounds of layouts.

We can probably dispose of about 10% of the fields and layouts at this time, as the layouts were made from copies, some of them rejected, and some of the fields were created "new" when they were supposed to be the same as something old. (Example: they faxed us a new layout, and one column was very narrow so they abbreviated the field name. We created another field with the new name. They tried it for a few weeks, but never had any reason to mess with that column. Then one day, it's "hey, why isn't this working?" and maybe next time they'll remember to tell us, and eventually they did.)

Anyway, I suggested a fourth column here, but it would be nicer if it was a menu of its own, to let us know which layout these fields are on and how many occurences of that field are on each layout. What do you think?

p.s.--I hope this doesn't sound like a rant against customer changes. It's true that the best thing to do is to work out everything in advance, but how often is that even possible? Besides, it's great to be able to tell them, "yes, we can do that and make your life easier."

[Ocean West]

You can get this info via the DDR report in Filemaker Pro Advance. (although not live) you can run your report every so often then use Inspector or BaseElements to help with the analysis.

(your right a live view of all dependencies would be awesome)

[Ender]

FM8/8.5 Advanced has a Database Design Report which shows what scripts, layouts, fields, value lists, and relationships use each field. It's not exactly as handy as another column, but this functionality does exist. Anyway, for serious development, you should really be using the Advanced version anyway (lots of good features).

[Lee Smith]

I used to like the Overview for this reason.

Lee

[m.v.peabody]

:thumbup: We do have FM8 Advanced, but not on every workstation. Thanks for the DDR tip...it's running now.

Thoreau said, "simplify, simplify." Nike says, "just do it."