Working With Two Portals

[rdal]

Hello Everyone,

I am a FileMaker newbie. But I have been a programmer for over 25 years. I started with Basic, to Clipper to VB. I have also experience in MySQL.

But my question is this: I have two (2) tables, Chart of Accounts (which has only 3 fields) and Beginning Balances (which is related to the Chart of Accounts via AcctCode). So obviously, this is a one-to-many relationship.

I already have a solution where you browse through your Parent Table, one record at a time, and automatically view the related records in the portal.

But since I am only working with a 3-field table, I was wondering if I could browse the parent table in a portal, and as I move from one record to the next, another portal displays the related records from the child table.

Forgive my ignorance, but is ther a FileMaker work-around for this?

Thanks in advance.

Danny

Philippines

[mr_vodka]

You can use a self join relationship from chart account to chart account. You can use the cartesian operator ( X ) instead of the = to make all the records related to each other.

Create a portal using this relationship. It will not show you all the records from chart account.

You can put a button on the portal that will bring you to the record that you want using Go to Related Record.

In the end it will look like a quick nav for the parent records. Since the balances child portal will be on the parent layout already, when you navigate to the selected self join record, everything should work as is.

[rdal]

Thanks for the quick reply mr_vodka. However, there seems to be a problem. The 2nd portal does not display the related records, but displays all records.

Hmmm... I wonder where I went wrong...

[mr_vodka]

There should be 2 portals with different relationshps.

Chart of Accounts::pkAccount_ID = Balances::fkAccount_ID

Chart of Accounts::pkAccount_ID X Chart of Accounts 2::pkAccount_ID

[rdal]

Oh ok... my mistake... I related the Account Balances to the Chart of Accounts 2 table...

Thanks again.

[rdal]

Hmmm... There seems to be a problem...

I followed your advice and created the 2 relations and the 2 portals just as you said.

However, the Child portal doesn't seem to "refresh"when I select a Parent record.

I displayed the 2 "accountID"s on the layout, Chart 1 and Chart 2, and both values did not change, even if I placed the cursor on another record in the parent portal.

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance.

Danny

Philippines

[Søren Dyhr]

However, the Child portal doesn't seem to "refresh"when I select a Parent record.

Did the button in the cartesian portal issue a GTRR, and what layout have your defined the arrival to be?

--sd

[rdal]

cartesian portal? GTRR?

I am truly sorry, but I did not understand a word you said.... Please be patient, for I am such a newbie... :

Thanks for all your help.

[Søren Dyhr]

1) GTRR is abbreviation of Go To Related Record.

2) The X kind of relation type is formally known as Cartesian:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartesian_product

--sd

[rdal]

Thanks a lot SD, was quite educational and informative.

I read somewhere that I need to do the following:

1. "trap" the Record number of the Item I selected in the portal. I understand I need to do this via the Button Setup.

2. Store that record number in a Global Variable.

Unfortunately, I don't know how...

WHen I go to the Button Setup of a field in the portal, I don't know what else to do when I select the "Go To Related Record" command.

In other words, I am stuck. And I surely would appreciate if anybody out there could show me the step-by-step procedure.

Thanks a million!

Danny

Philippines

[comment]

Perhaps this demo can be useful:

http://www.fmforums.com/attachments/uploads/1207779277-NavPortal.fp7.zip

The X kind of relation type is formally known as Cartesian

Actually, the correct name is "Cartesian product", not just "Cartesian".

[rdal]

Hi Comment,

Thanks for the link. It is going to be useful for me. I already checked it out and now I know exactly what to do.

Thanks again...

[Søren Dyhr]

Actually, the correct name is "Cartesian product", not just "Cartesian".

True, it could be everything from Descartes hand, and actually any produce from La Haye en Touraine after 1967...

--sd

[Søren Dyhr]

In other words, I am stuck.

I didn't have any recollection of this template flowing around, and was about to make you one ... Comment's template does exactly what we suggested! Only thing is do you need help digesting it or are you up and running?

--sd

[rdal]

Thank you Everybody!!!

My two portals are finally working... the only "kink" i need to iron out is the "flashing" of the portal everytime i move to another record in my "Master".

Another thing I wish to "fix" is how the portal looks. It seems that there are "gaps" in between rows. It doesn't look that "neat".

Other than that, I am already happy.

Any tips? :