Are Portals a Bad Idea for Networking?

[Ambush Bug]

Hello All

I'm jumping head first into the world of networking a FM solution which relies heavily on portals, and I tested it out last night. The disturbing fact I discovered is that the dialog box warning the user that someone else is modifying the record pops up for numerous portal rows, no matter what record the first user is in. It's almost like they are in many records because of the portal, which makes sense in a way but is pretty annoying.

I thought that portals were like windows, rather than doors. I don't have any field in the portal with entry capability, and use it only as a way to go to the related record (via button) for data entry. What I want is for the user to be able to click on the portal row without Filemaker thinking that they are entering that record. Is there a workaround?

Also, is there a way to capture this particular error message?

Also, will Server edition take care of this problem?

Thanks again for sharing.

Herr Bugg

[Kurt Knippel]

quote:

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Originally posted by Ambush Bug:

Hello All

I'm jumping head first into the world of networking a FM solution which relies heavily on portals, and I tested it out last night. The disturbing fact I discovered is that the dialog box warning the user that someone else is modifying the record pops up for numerous portal rows, no matter what record the first user is in. It's almost like they are in many records because of the portal, which makes sense in a way but is pretty annoying.

I thought that portals were like windows, rather than doors. I don't have any field in the portal with entry capability, and use it only as a way to go to the related record (via button) for data entry. What I want is for the user to be able to click on the portal row without Filemaker thinking that they are entering that record. Is there a workaround?

Also, is there a way to capture this particular error message?

Also, will Server edition take care of this problem?

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Welcome to the world of FMP networking. Actually this is a problem that occurs with every database to some extent. It is due to record locking, where a database locks a record that is in use by someone else.

There is not really a simple way around this problem. What you can do is to make adjustments to your solution to make it less prone to locking records that are needed by someone else.

Segregate the data. If person A and B both need to work on the same data, record locking problems are inevitible. But do they really need to work on the same data? Segregate the data so that person A works on thier data and person B works on thiers, no more record locking.

Server will not solve this problem. You might be able to supress some of the error message by using the SetErrorCapture[On] at the beginning of your scripts.

No solution can be instantly deployed in a networked situation without first taking multiple users into accout. This is true of every database system out there.

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Kurt Knippel

Senior Filemaker Developer

http://www.database-resources.com

mailto:[email protected]

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[Ambush Bug]

Thanks for responding, Kurt

I understand why the records lock, and am reconciled to that. What I'm wondering about is whether when Person A and subsequently Person B are both looking at the same portal/layout, one will have locked the other out of every related record through the portal as well as the one they are sitting in. That seemed to happen, and I was surprised that one user could be locking more than one record.

We had trouble just highlighting portal rows without getting the error message. If this is the case, then I will need to get rid of the portals all together (and wonder why they even exist). Unfortunately, Person A and Person B have to be working on the same info, so there's no getting around that.

Of course, if we could have enter-able fields in the header of List View, then I wouldn't have to worry about using portals, but alas...

Has anyone had success in using portals over a network?

.ta ta.

Herr Bugg