How to Prevent Portal Autosort

[FMReader]

Filemaker Pro 10 Advanced.

We're having a problem with portal autosort

I have a repeating field list on the left and a matching portal on the right that pulls corresponding data from a related table.

The user types a word on the left and the related word appears in the right-hand column (the portal).

So far, so good. The correct data appears.

But... the portal is sorting it (I don't have any sort values set in portal preferences).

This is NOT what we want. We want the portal values on the right to line up with the corresponding values on the left, exactly as they are entered, not for the list to reshuffle itself.

There's no way to predict which words or how many will be on the left, so a value list work-around isn't practical.

Help!! How do we turn off autosort? We want the portal data to be displayed in the same order it's fetched.

[comment]

I am repeating my earlier response:

It's not going to happen. If a portal isn't sorted, the related records will be displayed in the sort order of the underlying relationship. If the relationship is not sorted, the default sort order - by order of creation - will be used. You need to look for some other method, e.g. entering your values into a portal to a third table, serving as a join table.

[comment]

Here's an example of what I meant:

JoinDict.zip

[FMReader]

I am repeating my earlier response:

It's not going to happen. If a portal isn't sorted, the related records will be displayed in the sort order of the underlying relationship. If the relationship is not sorted, the default sort order - by order of creation - will be used. You need to look for some other method, e.g. entering your values into a portal to a third table, serving as a join table.

Well, I must be hallucinating, because it's not being displayed in the sort order of the underlying relationship or by order of creation. It would be great if it did. The order of creation would work fine, since once the words are entered, they rarely are changed.

By the way, I moved the thread to the correct forum. Sorry, I'm still getting used to the new forum format. I'm only an occasional visitor here.

[comment]

By the way, I moved the thread to the correct forum.

Please don't do that. If a post needs to be moved, one of the moderators will do that. Meanwhile, your issue is spread over three threads.

Well, I must be hallucinating, because it's not being displayed in the sort order of the underlying relationship or by order of creation. It would be great if it did. The order of creation would work fine, since once the words are entered, they rarely are changed.

If you haven't set up a sort order for the portal or for the relationship, the records in the portal will be displayed in the order they (the related records) were created.

[FMReader]

I'm just looking at your zipped file example. It shows a good understanding of what we want to do.

I need some time to study its structure to see if we can adapt our data the same way. Will report back. Thanks.

[FMReader]

I can see, in your .zip example, that the sentences and word lists DO retain the original entry order and also adjusts correctly if things are shuffled around on the left—exactly what we need.

Our 'sentences' data was developed as a separate database by separate people, it's only now that we are linking them. But the portal data doesn't behave in the same way as your example when fetching from another database (rather than a table within the same database)--it changes the order dynamically as words are entered.

It may take me a while to figure out why (I'm not a Filemaker expert), but at least I have something to work from. Thanks for your help.

[comment]

Note that in my file, every time you enter a new word into the portal, you create a new record in the Words join table. These are the records that are shown in the portal, and they are shown in the order they were created.