Portal One-Line Limitation

[rltoombs]

Hi everyone, I'm putting together my first real database and I've hit a snag. The idea is this: as a film production company, we want to be able to log every screenplay that gets submitted to us. Using the FM9 Task Management template, I'm trying to use the Contacts table as the hub from which all other info flows. I've created a few extra tabs, one of which is called Submissions. Since it's certain that writers will submit several scripts over time, the Submissions tab should be able to accommodate an unknown number of multiple submissions.

I tried creating a portal relating back to a Submissions table, and that part works fine--but we simply need too much information, and the portal's one-line limitation is turning into a major problem. We need the script's title, the date it was submitted (and the date we return it, if we do), a logline description of the plot, and an area for perhaps-extensive comments on whether the script is any good. That's simply too much to go onto one line, unless I make the line massively wider than anything else in the database--which I'm assuming my partners won't be so crazy about.

So my question is: is there a way around the portal's one-line limitation? Or is there some other way to accomplish what I'm trying to accomplish?

Thanks for any help.

Bob Toombs

[IdealData]

You can increase the depth of the line to accomodate more fields.

[Søren Dyhr]

The problem with these templates is that the ones who actually have the skills to modify them would never dream of using them, while the ones who use them have been misguided, into believing that some sort of shortcut or flattening of the learning curve actually exists ... the way you actually are most likely learn is unfortunately to build things from scratch.

Although I haven't scrutinized more that the Event Management template , have I from various posters here learned, that the utilized methods needs some serious weeding for bad habits!

Teaching is a calling. Doing it badly is unforgivable. Teaching beginners is sacred. Doing it badly is a venal sin. Teaching FileMaker beginners in a way that guarantees they will have bad results is a mortal sin. There is a special place in hell where the deceased pretentious teacher must sit through an endless FSA meeting and beg to have pins stuck into their eyes for relief from the unbearable torture.

Plucked from: http://network.datatude.net/viewtopic.php?p=239&highlight=#239

--sd

[rltoombs]

You can increase the depth of the line to accomodate more fields.

Please pardon my ignorance, but I tried that and kept running into other problems. For one thing, the portal seems to live independently of the rest of the layout--it's riding above every one of the tabs instead of just appearing in the Submissions tab where I want it.

And in the Submissions tab, it seems to float over the fields I want to include in it--they're hidden behind, and I just get the big wide empty portal that is now hiding not just the Submission fields but also every field in every other tab.

I'm sure I'm doing something dreadfully wrong, but I'm pretty well lost as to what it might be.

Thanks,

Bob Toombs

Edited September 23, 2007 by Guest

[Tintagel]

Hi Bob,

Sounds very strange. Maybe if you could post a screen shot, it might be possible to see what is going wrong. :qwery:

[rltoombs]

Sounds very strange. Maybe if you could post a screen shot, it might be possible to see what is going wrong.

I can do that?

Hey, I can do that! Cool!

In the image, the portal is offset down and right so that you can see some of what's behind it.

Bob

[Søren Dyhr]

Both the fields as well as the portalrows can be resized, you better do both!

--sd

[Ender]

And in the Submissions tab, it seems to float over the fields I want to include in it--they're hidden behind, and I just get the big wide empty portal that is now hiding not just the Submission fields but also every field in every other tab.

Try selecting and moving the fields to the foreground using Arrange->Bring to Front.