Relationship naming convention

[john9210]

I’ve used FileMaker for many years, and now use FM 8.5. The biggest headache I have is naming TOs. I’ve seen many schemes for doing this, but they are all very cumbersome and difficult to adopt. “Squids” is a case in point. I think the problem with these schemes is that they are trying to name a TO in a way that it describes the [color:red]relationship between two tables. This is not very satisfactory.

I think a better approach would be to name the relationship between two TOs. For example I would name the relationship between Contacts and Addresses as contacts/addresses. It’s simple and straight forward.

I would like to see FileMaker provide a tool to name relationships. One simple way would be to add two more entry boxes in the Edit Relationship dialog box: Relationship name and Purpose. A brief description of what the relationship is use for could be entered in Purpose.

Relationship names along with all the relationship characteristics (purpose, TOs involved, type of relationship, creation of records, sorting, etc.) could be shown in list views and could be printed out.

I hope I’ve triggered enough interest to warrant further discussion. Perhaps FileMaker would take note and incorporate some changes to the program (although I would hate to have to pay for another upgrade)!

Anyone have comments or suggestions?

John9210

[Ugo DI LUCA]

Hi,

What if this relationship from Contacts to Adresses expand up to ZipCodes, Cities and Countries ?

Some would use a "path" ( con_adr_zip_cit_countries or cou_con_adr_zip_cit_Country ) , but as we can see it's tied to a root.

FM7 is bi-directional. Adopting the path thing is tied to a unidirectional relationaships structure.

I prefer naming TOs with what they represent at the end, tied to a TOG and with a clear identification of the Source Table (tog_TBL_WhatItIsUsedFor ) But any convention is ok as long as you know why you use it.

[fabriceN]

I would say a naming convention SHOULD just be... a convention

But unfortunately, FileMaker doesn't provide obvious design functions (not to mention the ones that don't work properly)... Naming then becomes a development tool.

For instance, and when we're talking about table occurrences, BaseTable ( Table ) is missing.

I would state that a Table Occurrence should then be named in a way that allows you to get its base table by calculation.

This is the only mandatory thing about TOs in a naming convention.

I also like to know what the TO represents in the data model, and if it has a special feature attached (portal, value list, filter...)

Finally, I find it very handy if it describes the relationship (the 3 checkboxes), but this causes the name to change often during the development process, which is not a good idea if you have some php calling these TOs...

Of course this is nothing but my personal views on the subject.

As to name the relationship itself... I'm not in the urge to launch FileMaker 6 again ;)

[Fenton]

I'm pretty much a "structural name" guy. Yes, some of the names get long. I often use abbreviations, but not to the extent that I can't easily tell what they stand for. The fact that a name may get long is OK with me. Because it tells me two things, exactly where it is on the graph, and how close it is to the anchor of its TOG. If the name is really long then I know it is not one of my close-in ones, that it is likely more of a reference or special use one.

I may use a TO for various things, so it would be difficult to consistently name TOs according to their use, and I need to be consistent (or I'm dead -).

I have no problem quickly going to the Relationship Graph for a refresher on just what a TO is. The graph should in the end be as familiar as the back of your hand.

As far as going back to clunky FileMaker 6 text relationships, never! But I'd dearly love a Comments box, in both the TO name and Relationship dialogs, like we have for fields. We have no place now to put info like this, other than creating a text box on the graph itself, which is fine once in a while, but really....

Edited May 11, 2008 by Guest

[mr_vodka]

But I'd dearly love a Comments box, in both the TO name and Relationship dialogs, like we have for fields. We have no place now to put info like this, other than creating a text box on the graph itself, which is fine once in a while, but really....

Completely agree! The current text box are difficult since they are horrible when you want to layer one ontop of the other.