Cascading Portals

[Sykwarka]

Firstly the last time I did some serious work was in FMP Dev 6. So updating a couple of solutions. I am having trouble with the long distance relationships (ha ha). I suspect this has been asked and answered before but couldn't find in searching, so here is my problem.

I have 5 TOCs (Things)as follows

Things A one to many to Things B one to many to Things C many to many Things E with join CE (D) in the middle.

Things A -< Things B -< Things C -< ThnigsCE(D)>- Things E. The last many to many seems to be the stumbling block for me.

On a layout looking at records from Things A I have a portal to show Things C (no problem). On the same layout I have a portal to show Things E.

(So I am looking from one end of the relationship to the other).

I want to select one item in the first portal (Things C) and then only show the related to C Things E. At the moment the second portal shows all Things E related to Thing A (of course).

I have gotten as far as clicking in the portal row and setting the related Thing C ID into a global field in another TOC (Temp/utility whatever) via a scripted button in the portal row.

But for the life of me I cannot figure our how to restrict the second portal to be based upon the cascade from Things A thro Things C ie only related to C and not A as in Grandchildren I think is the analogy.

Its driving me nuts, I know this should be simple, as always a picture / example would help as I have got several reference texts (eg FMP 9 Bible ) that describe this but can't get my noggin around it.

PS I also want to be able to add into portal 2 with Things E and relate them back up the cascade via relevant record creation (do I need both sides of the create records ticked as I go back up the cascade)? I’ll figure out the delete issues later.

Thanks very muchly

Tony

Edited July 14, 2009 by Guest

[bcooney]

I did up a little demo.

Things.fp7.zip

[Sykwarka]

In the words of Mr Simpson - Doh!

Thank you very much for replying and taking time to do the demo - greatly appreciated.

I was almost there but had patched the 2nd set of TOCs into Things A rather than B. I have also changed the second portal to read from Things E rather than D so I can/ am adding to Things E via portal 2 - all Ok.

I just need to figure out the correct relationship for Things B - as this isn't generating the records in Things B, always creates the same Thing B related to all the Things E, D and C when I add a record new Thing E to Portal 2.

I might change the input methods ie via pop up windows etc but need to think about it - in some ways it makes the relationship a bit easier to understand as I can go to the more immediate layout related to the TOC data being added.

Thanks again and look forward to renewing acquaintances with the community again after a long absence.

Tony

[bcooney]

I played with the second portal being based on E, but then you cannot reuse an existing E.

I do think that you need to rethink the interface. It is a bit hard-coded in that you cannot pick a different ThingB, it'll always use the first related.

Nice to have you back. Post a clone/demo of your 'real' file for less academic-help.

[Sykwarka]

Agree re interface, just replicating (including the interface) an Access db to help me understand the RG, TOCs etc in the FMP7+ way.

FYI what we use it for is to collect data during a brainstorm session. The current interface in Access uses the two portals (Things B, C and E in them) with Thing A at the top and is projected for the team. So we think of Things C, allocate Things B to each one and then for each Thing C we have many Things E.

Then we export to Excel to draw a mind map type picture via vb macro from the text data collected.

Thanks for the note re Thing D TOC for Portal 2 will revert - haven't got my head around the jump from FMP 6 to FMP7-10 yet, so these things will trip me up for a while.

Thanks,

Tony

[bcooney]

I think you're doing great. It's a whole new ballgame, really. Read the FMI Dev standards white paper if you have time. It's a great start for FM7+ thinking.