Hiding portals vs Repeating fields

[aliquis]

For some time I’ve been using repeating fields to hold short-hand keys to data from another table which is then displayed in full on the record via a portal. The repeating field has been the match field for the full data on the other table.

But I want to hide the repeating field from my end users, who need to see only the full data displayed in the portal. To achieve this I’ve been using the trick I learnt in this forum of covering the field with another portal which doesn’t display to other users when there is no matching field .

(http://fmforums.com/forum/showtopic.php?tid/177010/post/229456/#229456)

Now, having also learnt that repeating fields are not generally considered to be a good thing I’ve spent some time reconfiguring the database to put all the repeats, separated out, in another related table which I now access through a second portal, instead of a repeating field. Having got that far I now find that when I come to use the old trick to hide the short-hand keys that used to be in a repeating field but are now in a portal, it doesn’t work. I can see but can no longer access the portal to input the data that will display the full information to the end user. Presumably this is because you can’t put a portal on a portal?

So my question is: how do I hide the portal? Have I just gone wrong somewhere? I’d be grateful for any help.

[The Big Bear]

Aliquis

You can hide the portal by baseing the relationship on a case or if statement.

If(relatioship is true) then portal will be displayed.

when

the (relationship is not true) the portal is not displayed.

[aliquis]

Thanks Big Bear - that sounds promising, but I don't quite get it. Where do I set up this relationship?

[The Big Bear]

Aliquis

Check the file out. Press the button marked "Press".

aliquis.zip

[Lee Smith]

You can hide the portal by baseing the relationship on a case or if statement.

You still have to give it the Real Estate though.

I modified your example file and added the color to call attention to what I mean.

Lee

portal.fp7.zip

[aliquis]

Many thanks both - I'll take a look at these.

[aliquis]

Thanks to both of you for working on this. I fear I didn't quite explain my set up well enough. I've attached 2 files. The first has the Repeating Field solution where hiding the field that I want to hide works OK. In the second I've replaced the repeating field with a portal in the way I believe you should if you want to avoid repeating fields. But now I can't hide the portal. I don't think it can be done through altering the relationship because then it breaks all the links. If you can see a way of doing this with the Port.fp7 file that would be very handy.

RptPrtl.zip

[comment]

You cannot have a portal in another portal, so the 'visibility' trick won't work here.

You can "hide" layout elements by using a tab control. But I don't understand why you need this at all: under what circumstances do you want to show these codes? Why not simply remove them from the layout altogether (at least from the user's layout)?

[aliquis]

Thanks - I thought that was the reason why it wouldn't work.

As the information provider I use the codes in order to input the data which then summons the full record details into the display, so I don't have to write 'History, Geography, Chemistry' in full. (In reality I use course codes as there are about 600 of them - too many for a value list.) My end users don't actually input data - they only need to see and get reports about which courses each student is doing, and which student is doing which courses. I have quite a few of these little details and the layout is very cluttered for the viewer if I can't hide them. The visibility trick on the repeating fields was ideal.

But you mention using tab control. How would this work? I could duplicate the layout on a tab except for the portals, but there is then no way of making the tab invisible is there? It would surely just be a tab where I say to the users 'Don't go there - it doesn't concern you.'

[comment]

It could work this way (attached). If you change the tab control's border width to "None", there will be no way to switch tabs other than by a button/script. Another way would be to make a whole new layout - with access restricted to you only.

Port2.fp7.zip

[aliquis]

Thanks a lot - that is really good. Very clever. I can build a script to run at login to set all the tabs in all the layouts to the dev or usr view depending on the login details.

And just as I was beginning to think I'd have to go back to repeating fields! You've really helped - thanks.

[comment]

I can build a script to run at login to set all the tabs in all the layouts to the dev or usr view depending on the login details.

I don't think that's going to work well - the tab control will revert to the default tab every time you switch layouts. You could make all navigation scripted, with the tab switching included - but I believe it would be easier to have a set of layouts for yourself only.

[aliquis]

So it does. That's a pity. I'm reluctant to go to multiple layouts. In fact that's the way I started out. It was learning the visibility trick that prompted me to ditch all the duplicates.

But all my layout changes are scripted anyway, so I can set window size, window titles and so on. It may not be such a problem to build the tab setting for each layout into the change layout script.

Edited January 17, 2008 by Guest