Please Help - very simple calendar/appt manager

[jwnacnud]

I don't need a full blown calendar, just a way to display events/appointments whose date ranges overlap. Just need this in a simple field.

For example, I have an event that took place over the course of a year. Let's call this event Age 13 (since I was 13 for a whole year). I am inputting some other events (journal entries) that also fall within this time frame. So, after I finish putting in the start and end date of the journal entry, it would show me in a text box or portal any other events that overlap. In this example, the event: Age 13 would overlap.

I don't know how to do this. It seems like it should be simple.

Help Please!

Jeffrey

[comment]

Define a self-join relationship as:

Events::Start ≤ Events 2::End

AND

Events::End ≥ Events 2::Start

AND

Events::EventID ≠ Events 2::EventID

A portal to Events 2 will show events that overlap the current event.

[Fenton]

Shouldn't it be:

Events::Start < Events 2::End

So an event would be OK if it started at the same time another ended?

In real life we could say, "I've got a class from 9:00 to 10:00, then another from 10:00 to 11:00," ignoring the fact that there's a small break period between.

Edited August 15, 2008 by Guest

[comment]

I would agree - if Start and End were time (or timestamp), not dates.

[jwnacnud]

Perfect. Thank you. It worked first time. It also opened my eyes to more complex relationships. Thank you.

On a side note, I would like to be able to display overlapping events in some way other than column mode (inside the portal)

How can I display them in a manner like this:

Soccer, Daily Routine, Age 8

Instead of like this:

Soccer

Daily Routine

Age 8

Would a merge field in the portal work? I tried and was unsuccessful.

thank you in advance

[comment]

This is easier in version 8.5 and above, with its List() function. In previous versions you need to (1) define a value list using values from the field in Events 2 (show only related values starting from Event), (2) get the values through the ValueListItems() function, and (3) use Substitute() to change the returns into commas.

[jwnacnud]

I have Filemaker 9.03 so List is available to me. I just don't see the option to list the results on one line. I looked at the usage of List and don't see any advanced results. Thank you again.

[comment]

Try:

Substitute ( List ( Events 2::Event ) ; ¶ ; ", " )

[jwnacnud]

This was perfect. Thank you very much. In addition, would I need a different self-join in order to show the previous 5 events and also the 5 events occurring after. So, we've already figured out how to show ALL concurrent events based on the self-join that you showed. I want to show the most recent 5 events that had an end date before the concurent events. Same with 5 events after. Can you help with an example?

[comment]

I want to show the most recent 5 events that had an end date before the concurent events.

The first part of the answer is already in the question: construct your relationship to include only events that meet the specified criteria.

Limiting the related set to a maximum size can be difficult, because you need to know which events are in the (unlimited) related set first. So it would take two relationships: one to fetch all the events that meet the criteria, and one to to fetch those that match the 5 ID's derived from the first list.

A simpler method would be to sort the related records by date and show them in a portal of 5 rows only.

[grandwheatgrass]

I'm looking to add a calendar to a layout that shows the month for the creation date of a record. It will basically show a graphical view of the month and I will put some sort of market on the days that have a record created for it.

I thought that this may be an appropriate place to ask since, it seems you already have some sort of calendar built.

Is there any file I can download that will give me an example of a monthly calendar layout? Maybe I could look at that file and reverse engineer it to do what I want.

Thanks.

[comment]

You can find a description of how to build a simple monthly calendar using only one (repeating) calculation field here:

http://fmforums.com/forum/showpost.php?post/205680/

The gDate field referenced there is the "anchor" date (i.e. any date within the shown month). I suppose you'll want to use your record's creation date instead.

I didn't get the part with the marker/s.