Find first text instance in a multikey from a calculation?

[orge]

I've had a search of the forums, but the details of this problem make it hard to find an appropriate solution. This is related to my previous topic in the layout forum:

http://fmforums.com/forum/showtopic.php?tid/214304/

As noted above, I'm trying to produce a quote/invoice layout which looks like this:

Descriptive text for service 1

     Item 1    service 1     12m     £5

     Item 2    service 1     5m       £4



Descriptive text for service 2

     Item 3    service 2     4m     £8

I'm still open to suggestions which would enable this entirely within FM, but my current plan is to export the relevant data to a word-processor and merge it into a quote template.

In order to achieve this, I need to be able to identify which line items are the 1st of their kind. Ideally, I would like to do this with a calculation - create a multi-key within the quote record that stores the id's of the 1st entries.

At the moment I have:

QTE_systems_ - multi-key of all systems in quote

(sorted by ascending item id)

QTE_line_id - multi-key of the line items id

(again, sorted by ascending item id)

QTE_systems - multi-key of systems in quote

(only a single instance of each)

Somehow, I need to compare the QTE_systems and QTE_systems_ and determine the relevant QTE_line_id. However, I haven't been able to work out a method for processing cyclical operations within a calculation.

Looking at the above, I'm pretty sure that there must be an easier way to go achieve this, but it's beyond my current experience with filemaker.

Any help/advice much appreciated.

Many thanks,

James

Edited April 14, 2010 by Guest

[comment]

Why don't you print the invoices from the line items table, with a sub-summary by type?