block field data entry

[LukasB]

I have created a architectural material database. Each tab is a different kind of material (eg. flooring, cladding, furniture). Each tab has the excact same field structure (name, description,distributor etc). I want to avoid people from using more that one tab in the same record so that each product is by itself. I thought of being able to use the field "name of product"(available on all tabs)only once for each record, by blocking data entry at the rest of the "name of product" fields in the remaining tabs. I hope this is clear enough.

Is such thing possible? Do you have any better ideas?

Any advice would be very much appreciated because I cannot find the answer.

Thank you in advance,

Lukas

[comment]

Do you mean you have several name fields for the same record?

[LukasB]

I should have 1 name field for each record, but since i have many tabs [color:orange][i want to devide materials into categories, each category has it's own tab], each one containing a name field, as a result, a user adding a new record let's say in the cladding tab, can also fill any other tab in the same record which is something I don't want.

[color:red]Basically, what I want to achive is:Creating a new record, filemaker would only let you fill the fields of one and only tab (maybe by blocking the rest of the tabs, supposing you have a "create new record" button on every tab)

thanks

[comment]

I think it would be best if you moved to version 10, or installed a script triggering plugin. In any case, you must take away users' ability to switch between tabs and control it yourself, based on the category chosen for the product.