Need help on Portal

[Mickdn]

All I wish to do is have a Portal display certain items after a Find. After a week searching, reading and testing I still can't find the right solution, maybe you people can help? I think most of my problem is because I want the Portal on the same layout. File is attached which should explain what I'm after.

Many Thanks

FAQ_File.zip

[Vaughan]

Portals display related records, not found sets.

Display found sets in list views. That's what they are designed for.

There are some interestings things that can be done with portals based on relationships that reference global fields: the portal will display any record whose matching key is listed in the global field.

The trick is to get the right key field values into the global, but it's usually not hard though sometimes time consuming, and it has hard limitations on the maximum number of keys that can be listed because the field can contain a maximum 2GB of text.

[Fitch]

My first question is: why not simply use a list instead of a portal?

If you must use a portal, you might script the process along these lines:

1. Find

2. Capture ID's of found set into a global field

With a relationship from the global to the record ID, you'll show the found records in the portal.

Actually now that I think about it, I have another question: why do a Find?

You can simply make a relationship based on Make and Model and show the related records in a portal. No Find or script necessary.

[Mickdn]

Thanks on the speedy reply, why not use a list you ask? Simply, I don't want one. I'd like just a nice clean page without, new layouts or windows jumping up everwhere, just fussy I guess. Your suggestion of simply make a relationship to Model and Make is great, problem is, over the last week I've tried every combination of relationships I could think of, except for the right one. Any help in this direction would be great.

[comment]

Try something like this.

FAQ_File.fp7.zip

[Mickdn]

Many thanks, this will work just fine for what I need to do. After reviewing my last few try's at solving this, I can't believe I came so close, but no cigar. Thanks Again

[Gordie]

I might be a little late to this discussion, but I'm having a similar problem, but with a slightly more complicated objective than Mickdn.

According to the FMP documentation:

"You can enter find criteria in related fields that are displayed in a portal or directly on a layout."

and

"When you perform a find in a related field, FileMaker Pro displays all the records that have a related record matching the criteria you enter. For example, in an invoice file that is displaying line items as related records in a portal, you could find all invoices listing a computer by typing Computer in the Item field in the portal."

This does not seem to work per the documentation, and for my problem, this seems to be the most straightforward solution...

Major bummer...

Gordie

[Vaughan]

Just because YOU cannot get it to work doesn't mean it doesn't work for everybody else.

When testing, make sure there are some related records that match the find criteria. Otherwise you'll be doing everythign right but still not get a satisfactory result.

[Gordie]

Uhhh...it certainly would not be the first time I had buffooned something....

In my situation, my portal showed four related records. I searched on words in a particular field that were only in a subset of the related records that were displayed at the time, but all records were returned (not expected). If I searched using a term that was in none of the records, none returned (as would be expected).

I doublechecked the original records to make sure that I wasn't missing something, but could find no reason that a record with "Solution" in the field of interest was found when I searched on "Risk" in that same field.

Maybe I'm just screwing up my understanding of the relationship between related records and found sets such that FMP is not just looking at the actual field on which I'm searching, but actually looking at a record that is related to the related record (kind of a double indirection or something).

I'll tinker some more...

Gordie

[Vaughan]

Hmmm, the way that finds in portals work can be confusing.

Take this set of records, wehere each master record has four related records that have a City field in them:

Master 1

Related data = Tokyo; Sydney; Calgary; London

Master 2

Related data = Melbourne; Wellington; Shanghai; London

Master 3

Related data = Sydney; New York; Newcastle; Paris

A search in the portal for "London" will return Master 1 and Master 2 records, because these have a related record with "London" in the City field. But you'll also see other cities in the portals of the master records, and if the portal is small the matching related record might not even be visible.

[David Stark]

I have a file in FMPro v 6.0 that I am trying to get the portal to work. I want to use the portal to "filter" a list of classes based up the year (Number) and season (text) and utilizing global fields to determine what I am filtering.

When I create the relationship I get the dialog: This relationship will not work because the field "::g.year.drill" cannot be indexed. PROCEED ANYWAY?

Of course I click yes. And, of course, it doesn't work.

Is there a workaround?