Inspiration Requested - Displaying Address(Es)

[Jason_CA]

Looking for some layout inspiration, and am rather new to FM.

I have a company-centric file that has multiple contacts and multiple addresses associated with it via TOs. I have a layout called 'Customer Management' that will allow the user to add, view, and modify company details.

I was thinking of using tab control to switch views to contacts and addresses for the specific company. However, using a portal just gives me a table form view of the respective contacts or addresses. I'd prefer to make this a little more UI friendly.

For example, one method I was debating was having a drop down box that listed the contact/addressee name for the user to select, which would populate fields of data in its respective tab. Or, they could click an "Add Address/Contact" button which could either popup a new window/layout, or wipe all the fields in that tab to allow for data entry. The user could then make adjustments and save without having to leave the main company layout. Only problem being I don't know how to do the first part - that is populate a drop down list that affects fields within the tab, and I'm having trouble finding any specific documentation on this, so most likely I am looking in the wrong place.

Or - maybe someone out there has done something similar and found a solution that worked well for their users?

Thanks!

[dansmith65]

Hello again Jason...

I think you may benefit from scouring the web for FileMaker sample files/screen shots of databases. This will give you some ideas of how other people have solved the same sort of problems you are working on now. Here are a few links to start you off...

http://www.fmstartingpoint.com/

http://seedcode.com/

For example, one method I was debating was having a drop down box that listed the contact/addressee name for the user to select, which would populate fields of data in its respective tab

Are you trying to allow the user to select a related contact to view more information for them? If so, then you could use a portal to display just their name, then when the user clicks a portal row, it set's the related record's primary key value to a field in the current table, which is used in a separate relationship to the related table. This allows you to display/edit all the details for the one related record.