Display table while in Form View

[SwampFoot]

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

[comment]

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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.

[bruceR]

  On 4/14/2011 at 3:07 PM, SwampFoot said:

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

[SwampFoot]

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.

[comment]

  On 4/14/2011 at 7:17 PM, SwampFoot said:

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.

[SwampFoot]

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.

[comment]

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

[SwampFoot]

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

[comment]

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

FoundSetPortalS.zip

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

Or drown?