Active tab at front

[James Patrick]

Hello,

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated as I am a bit out of my depth. Basically I have 2 tab panels, 1 with a suppliers address on and 1 with a clients address on, you will look up the address via a drop down list. The user will only be able to choose a client address or a supplier address but not both.

Is it possible to restrict the user so if he chooses a client address on tab 1 he won't be able to choose a supplier address on tab 2?

Is it possible to make the tab with the address on always appear at the front?

Any pointers would be fantastic

Thanks

James

[comment]

Can you explain what this is about? What does a record represent?

[James Patrick]

Hello comment,

I think I have solved it using script triggers, please see attached file. Basically when you choose a client or supplier on the relevant tab on the orders layout, it clears the other selection on the other tab allowing you to only select a client or a supplier but not both. There is also a script trigger onlayoutenter that makes sure that the tab with the address is always at the front.

It would be great to see what you think as I am not sure if this is the best way to do this.

Thanks

James

[comment]

I see no attached file. In any case, it doesn't sound like "the best way to do this" - not in terms of your solution, but in the concept that created the problem in the first place.

If I am guessing correctly, you are using the same table (and layout) for both PurchaseOrders and Invoices. That's a rather unorthodox approach - though it could work. But if the document can have only one address, it should have only one set of address fields.

[James Patrick]

Hi comment,

Sorry, I forgot to click upload. Please see attached file it should explain what I was trying to achieve.

Thanks

James

test tab.zip

[comment]

it should explain what I was trying to achieve.

I am afraid it doesn't add anything meaningful about the real situation here. I still suspect you are solving a problem that shouldn't exist.

[James Patrick]

Hello comment,

I think I am just trying to work out my options to solve a problem that I mentioned in a different thread. Just to recap:

clients + Suppliers table

Jobs table

PO.s table

Transport orders table

The Jobs table has a value list that shows clients

The PO.s table has a value list that shows suppliers

The transport orders table has a value list that shows both suppliers and clients

What I originally wanted to do was have 2 layouts for the client + supplier table, as It would be useful to see a difference between the 2 but this came with its own problems so I thought it might be simpler to have tabs on the transport orders layout where you chose between client or supplier and you had 2 seperate tables for both client and supplier. But like you say I am probably trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist.

I have attached the file that I have been working on so it might give you a better idea as I don't think I am explaining myself very well.

Thanks for all your help and your patience as I am sure I am making this more complicated than it needs to be.

James

Test Help.zip

[comment]

a problem that I mentioned in a different thread.

Do you mean:

http://fmforums.com/forum/topic/79896-relationship-problem/page__p__371830

I believe the recommendation was to combine the Clients and Suppliers tables into a single Contacts table - otherwise you won't be able to have a combined value list. It's not the only way to proceed - but I am afraid I still don't understand the basic situation:

Can you explain what exactly a Transport Order is? Your layout suggests it should have a Job and a Supplier, but your RG links it to a Job and a Client.

I am also puzzled why your Purchase Orders are linked to Jobs and Clients. I can understand a PO being specific to a job - but don't you purchase from a supplier?

[James Patrick]

Hi Comment,

Sorry the attachment was confusing, I have chopped and changed it so my times trying to work out the best way to solve this problem.

Originally I had 2 tables, suppliers and clients but I deleted the suppliers table and was going to use the clients table for both which would let me have a value list on the transport orders page combining clients and suppliers.

To differentiate between clients and suppliers I put a field on this table "type" which would be automatically filled in depending on which layout you are on.

You are right about PO.s being specific to a job and the value list should only show suppliers, I imagine I could achieve this using a condition to filter only the records of type supplier but I didn't get that far.

Transport orders are also job specific but an be attached to either a client or supplier and so should show both in the value list.

Ideally I wanted 2 layouts, one for clients and one for suppliers as I wanted to put different information on each one but this comes with its own problems such as the found set being confusing hence I was trying the tabbed method with clients and suppliers as separate tables but I don't think that was quite right either.

Hopefully this makes a bit more sense now.

Any pointers would be greatly appreiated

Thanks

James

[comment]

Transport orders are also job specific but an be attached to either a client or supplier

If a transport order is job-specific, and a job is client-specific - isn't the client already known? I would still like to know what a "transport order" is; what does it represent in real life? You keep describing tables and layouts, but eventually it's the purpose that determines the structure.

Ideally I wanted 2 layouts, one for clients and one for suppliers as I wanted to put different information on each one

Well, ideally you would have three tables: a Contacts supertype table and two subtype tables for the fields specific to each type. However, that's not a solution I would recommend to a beginner - perhaps not even to an intermediate level developer. In most cases, a unified table provides a very satisfactory compromise.

[James Patrick]

Hello,

Transport orders are basically an order that we give to a our courier when we are ordering materials from a supplier or picking up something from a client, for example. So each job could have various Transport orders attached to it. I wish it was just a simple lookup based on the job No.

If I use a unified table, do you think it is a good idea to have the 2 different layouts or will that cause problems? Should I just be using one layout and allow the user to choose whether the contact is a client or supplier or do you think my idea with the tabs would be more suitable in this case.

Thanks for trying to understand what I am doing here I know I am probably not explaining myself very well.

James

[comment]

Transport orders are basically an order that we give to a our courier when we are ordering materials from a supplier or picking up something from a client, for example.

How important is it to know the difference between the two, when looking at a transport order? Or, asked from a different angle: I am creating a new transport order: will I be expected to select a type (client/supplier) first, before selecting the actual contact?

[James Patrick]

Hello,

It is not important to be able to distinguish between the 2. My reasons for wanting to have 2 separate tables for clients and suppliers were mainly not to have such a long value list on PO.s, for example, where a value list showing only suppliers would be preferable and also to allow for better finds so that you are only finding either clients or suppliers but not both. From your emails it does seem that a unified table sounds like the way to go forward with maybe a drop down to choose supplier or client, I can then base the value lists on this separation.

Is it possible to explain how I could make the value list specific to either clients or suppliers as I have never done this before.

Thanks

James

[comment]

See if this helps:

ContactTypes.zip

You can add separate layouts for Clients and Suppliers (both based on the Contacts table) and have them filtered by a script trigger as discussed in the other thread.

[James Patrick]

Hi Comment,

Thanks for the file that is exactly what I was trying to do. To improve on it, I suppose I could have the suppliers and clients layout with a script trigger to fill in the type field automatically based on the layout to cut down on data entry.

I was hoping to use the default filemaker status area and customize to suit, the problem is the found set. On a supplier layout for example the found set would be 3/6 which could be confusing. Would you design your own status area or is there someway to delete the found set from the filemaker status area?

Thanks again for all of your help, I have learnt hell of a lot

James

[comment]

Would you design your own status area

For other users? Certainly.

is there someway to delete the found set from the filemaker status area?

You can remove the entire navigation block - but this is an application-wide setting. It will affect all your files, and none of the files opened on another system.

[James Patrick]

Thanks Comment for all of your help in this thread, I have learnt loads and it has got me thinking different about how to go about my database,

Thanks again

James