Portal Help

[SLDB]

I was recently looking at some template files that came with the software, and this one in particular caught my attention. I would like to use something similar to the portal in it and was wondering if anyone could walk me through setting this up in my own database. Any help would be very much appreciated.

Resource_Scheduling.fp7.zip

Edited April 12, 2009 by Guest

[aldipalo]

Welcome to the forum.

Without knowing what "Your Database" it makes it difficult to tell you what you need to specifically do.

Why don't you tell us what you are trying to accomplish and we may be able to give you more help. A clone of your basic file would also be helpful.

Also, take apart the file you uploaded and take a look at what the relationship is between the 2 tables. That will give you an idea of how the developer accomplished the join.

HTH

[SLDB]

I am a graphic designer, and I am building a database to catalog some of my logos.

Right now my database has two tables. One which has general information and a picture sample. The other is for color. I have all of the pantone colors saved, each with their own record, that displays the PMS number, RGB value, and CMYK value.

I would like to put a portal in the logo table where I can type in a PMS number, and it will display the other info.

Make sense?

[mr_vodka]

It looks like you are just trying to use this for a reference lookup correct? You dont really need a portal for this. You can just use a global field to type in your PMS number. Create a relationship from the global field to the colors table. Put the related RGB and CMYK fields on the layout.

Now whenever you type in the PMS number the other fields will display the related info. BTW, if you want a store a seperate PMS number for each logo record, then just use a regular field instead of global.

[SLDB]

Could you please give me step by step instructions on how I would do this?

Thanks!

[mr_vodka]

1. Create global field in Logo table.

2. Go to relationships graph and create relationship keyed from this global field to the PMS number field in the color table. ( PMS number must be indexed )

3. Go to Logo layout. Put the RGB and CMYK fields from the color table on there.

4. Go out of layout mode and type a PMS number into the global field.

[comment]

Perhaps I am mistaken but the way I read this, each logo has one or more colors and the portal should show the details of the logo's colors. Which would require either a checkbox field to select the colors and a portal to the colors table, or (preferably) a join table between logos and colors and a portal to the join table.

[SLDB]

Yes, that is correct. All of the logos have different sets of colors, and even a different amount of colors. So how should I go about this?

[comment]

Like this?

Logos.fp7.zip

[SLDB]

That is perfect, thank you. Now I do have a couple of questions. There are three tables, one named colors, logo colors, and logos. What is the purpose of the logo colors table? I noticed that the colors table holds all of the color information, so is there a purpose for the extra table?

Also, would it be possible to put the RGB specs into one column displaying it like this (12/16/38)?

Thanks again for all of your help.

[comment]

The Colors table holds information about each color as such. The LogoColors table is a "join table" - it records the associations of colors to logos. This is the standard way to implement a many-to-many relationship in a relational database.

would it be possible to put the RGB specs into one column displaying it like this (12/16/38)?

Possible - yes. Advisable - no. But you could define a calculation field that would display that way, or just use merge fields directly on the layout.

[SLDB]

Ok, so if I were to modify or add colors on the colors table, would I have to do anything to the logo colors table in order to keep this working?

Sorry for my lack of knowledge.

[comment]

You can add colors to the Colors table without anything happening to the other tables. If you modify an existing color, the modification will affect any logos that have been assigned the modified color. Similarly, if you delete a previously assigned color, you will have an half-orphaned assignment in LogoColors.