I'm an absolute newbie to Filemaker. One thing that I can't quite figure out is how to display a table to a user while in Form View. I can get it to work with a portal, but isn't there a way to list information in Form View from the table associated with the layout? If a portal is the only way, how do you let the user search? I read that you are supposed to use tabs, with a different portal on each tab, but that gets cumbersome pretty quick.

Thanks

isn't there a way to list information in Form View from the table associated with the layout?

Not really. A Form view displays one record at a time. To view a list, switch to List or Table view.

Portals are "mini-tables" that can be placed on a form - but getting a portal to show records from the current fond set is far from being trivial.

A simple - though fairly ugly - way is to show records in List view, and turn the header (or footer) part into a "form". This way you can scroll through the list, and the details of the selected record will show above (or below) the list.

I'm an absolute newbie to Filemaker. One thing that I can't quite figure out is how to display a table to a user while in Form View. I can get it to work with a portal, but isn't there a way to list information in Form View from the table associated with the layout? If a portal is the only way, how do you let the user search? I read that you are supposed to use tabs, with a different portal on each tab, but that gets cumbersome pretty quick.

Thanks

You can use portal filter to do "finds" on data once you have defined a basic relationship.

You can also use the FIleMaker web viewer plus "collector scripts" to gather information and display it in tabular format in a web viewer.

Look at some of the reports in the example file available here:

http://www.filemaker.com/products/filemaker-pro/web_viewer.html

I've used the portal filter, but it seems kind of kludgy to have a different tab for each possible search term.

Is there a "For Dummies" explanation of using a global multi-key field to do display search results within a portal? Everything I have found is for look ahead searches.

This is the first that I heard of the collector scripts, thanks.

I've used the portal filter, but it seems kind of kludgy to have a different tab for each possible search term.

I don't see why you would use tabs for this. I think you are confusing the issue with portal sorting.

Note also that there is a difference between filtering a portal (or the relationship) instead of doing a find, and making the portal display the records that were found when doing a find.

The only reason I would use tabs is that is what I read was the 'correct' way to display search results in a list. I have no opinion one way or another. Let's forget the tabs.

Perhaps this might help. Note that this is not exactly a subject suitable for beginners.

http://fmforums.com/forum/topic/61394-found-set/page__p__290372

If you aren't in over your head, how are you going to learn how to swim?

I found an example file that sort of does what I am looking for (using a list layout) but it is a type ahead search and while I managed to duplicate it, I don't really understand why it works. I was hoping for something simpler.

http://www.nightwing.com.au/FileMaker/demosX/TypeAheadSystem.zip

Have a look at the attached - I don't think it can get simpler than that.

FoundSetPortalS.zip

If you aren't in over your head, how are you going to learn how to swim?

Or drown?