I have a DB with shippers and shipping items. Shipper is a table, shipping items is a related table.

The client wants to have a shippers summary page that shows all the shippers in oneline list type layout layout, which is easy enough, but they also want to see/be able to search the first 3 items in the shipper all in one line. (so columns line up)

I know we can't to horizontal portal rows, is there a way to get around this? maybe via calculated fields?

IE:

Shipper ID, Date, Number of Items, [color:red]Item 1, Item 2, Item 3

Shipper ID, Date, Number of Items, [color:red]Item 1, Item 2, Item 3

Shipper ID, Date, Number of Items, [color:red]Item 1, Item 2, Item 3

Shipper ID, Date, Number of Items, [color:red]Item 1, Item 2, Item 3

The List ( ) function lets you gather child records into a return-delimited list. Then, you apply a Substitute ( ) to swap out CRs for commas. That could be of use here.

However, what "3 items in the shipper all in one line" do you want to include? That might get tricky. You'd certainly need to gather the list through a relationship that is filtered in some way.

Why not a subsummary in Browse Mode based on the Shipping Items table?

Ahh that might just work... Thanks I'll give "list" a look!

Why not a subsummary in Browse Mode based on the Shipping Items table?

err, exactly, but they were quite adamant about everything being on one "row" limited to the first few item records!

go figure.

All you're left with, then, is defining that "first few items." I suppose you could use LeftWords ( ) or RightWords ( ) on the List to parse it.

I think the sub-sum in browse is more robust. You could put gDateStart and gDateEnds at the top that trigger a find using an OnObjectModify.

Maybe if you show them...

I know we can't to horizontal portal rows

Yes we can. You could place three one-row portals side-by-side and set each to start at a different row. Whether this is a good user interface is another question...

Yes we can. You could place three one-row portals side-by-side and set each to start at a different row. Whether this is a good user interface is another question...

LOL, thats what I love about the FM community! There's always some kind of horrible hack to get something done. When I say horizontal portal row, I'm was discussing an actual layout object, which FM currently does not have.

Speak of... how do you get portals to start on different rows? Some kind of filter I'd guess?

Edited November 16, 201015 yr by Guest

"Speak of... how do you get portals to start on different rows?"

You specify the starting (initial) row.

Unless you mean that you want to do this programmatically.

There's always some kind of horrible hack to get something done.

Perhaps, but this would not make a good example. The suggested method uses a perfectly legitimate documented feature.