How to link to a .fp7 that isn't in the main database

[Hoib]

I'm continuing to try to learn and write an app that was started by someone else eons ago. Here's my dilemma.

I'm working on a solution for our local food pantry. Clients.fp7 is the main database. I've created a second Food.fp7 containing records of all our food items plus a set of fields for each food item (a matrix) of how many of any item a certain household size is going to receive. The goal is to look at Clients when he visits, count the number of people then go lookup in Food.fp7 for the correct allotment. Then Print a customized Food Form (via a layout) for the visitor.

Unfortunately, I didn't write Food.fp7 so that it would be "inside" Clients thus every time I go to do the lookup from Clients into Food.fp7, Food isn't available to choose. I think this is where I went wrong - by not first establishing the relationship for the lookup inside Cllents; by creating Food as a standalone .fp7.

I think my basic design technique is flawed but I put a lot of work into Food and I don't know how to incorporate Food into Clients; make it a part of Clients.

I hope this makes sense. Could one of you kind souls nudge me in the right direction?

H

[Vaughan]

I think this is where I went wrong - by not first establishing the relationship for the lookup inside Cllents; by creating Food as a standalone .fp7.

Before FMP 7 every table was a separate file so solutions could have needed several or dozens of files. So no, that's not a problem.

Add Food to Clients as an external data source, then add the Food TO to the Clients relationship graph and all will be sweet.

[Søren Dyhr]

...exept when they loose track of each other, it's written in your profile that you're on fm5 - which leaves out the option to merge them at all. Please update your profile if needed?

--sd

[Hoib]

OK, profile updated. Sorry about that...

Vaughn is right - this solution was originally written in FM5. There is little if any documentation in the stream on why he/she did whatever he/she did. There were several .fp5-s with this solution which I brought into FM11 - one for Householdl, one for Follow-Up one for Finances and so forth. Food (because I just newly created it to add in that goal/funcitonality) isn't showing inside Clients like the others are. This is the second time you good folks have mentioned External Sources to me and I didn't associate the meaning. I must study up on External Sources, when to use, etc.

Just a note further: The resultant Foods form is not necessarily going to be the same each visit. These Clients change household size very readily. So I don't want to "marry" Clients to Food, I just need today's lookup to determine on today's visit how much food they're going to receive.

I'll be trying this again tonight.

Thanks for the help and support. This is such a nice forum...the best one I've visited in many years.

H

[Søren Dyhr]

I kind of suggest that measures should be taken to merge the files into one, and tools exist to perform the meat and potatoes part of it:

http://www.myfmbutler.com/index.lasso?p=422

But please note the:

System requirements

FileMaker Pro 11 Advanced or higher on MacOS X 10.6.4.

FileMaker Pro 10 or 11 Advanced or higher on Windows XP SP2, Vista or Windows 7 for Clip Manager 3 for Windows.

--sd

[Hoib]

Well, I'm back at this project again. Have I been remiss in not pointing out I'm on a Windows platform?

sd - Interesting suggestion but I'm curious: How would Clip-Manager be able to help me join everything together?

And Vaughn - I've tried for about a week drilling up and down through FM's File > Manage > External DataSource routines, looking for the obvious to add Food to Clients which sounds so right. I still cannot put the two together. This Food.fp7 has no primary or foreign keys - it's just the list of inventory and has no "relationship" to Clients in the classic FM sense. Once I get the Food.fp7 to open/be available, then I can do my lookups and so forth. I just can't seem to get to Food from Clients with a script because Food's layouts aren't visible/available inside Clients when I attempt the create-a-script dialog in FM.

How do I associate the table(s) in Food.fp7 with Clients without having to toally re-do everything in Food? As I said, unfortunatley they weren't created together...

Thanks for your patience all of you. I'm just having some trouble identifying what to do.

H

[Søren Dyhr]

Interesting suggestion but I'm curious: How would Clip-Manager be able to help me join everything together?

Sorry for not seeing this before now - anyways! If your solution have a lot of layouts bearing some kind of similarities could you build yourself a library of those ... the same could be done to the definitions of tables. What could be done is a cloning of an object and then use a straight forward text editor and then make simple substitutions of names of each field ... If you solution just is a tiny bit normalized ... would a lot of things be meat and potatoes in the definitions common to each table. Each should say have at least a keyfield of some kind.

In short will a library save you from some of the more trivial typing in matters. One thing you not are able to do sufficiently agile with out the tool is moving custom functions.

--sd

[Hoib]

OK, good people. I'm sorry but I am back at this and I am still struggling mightily with this. When I'm in Clients.fp7, there are 7 tables. A new .fp7 exists that I made outside of Clients in the same folder and is called Food.fp7. Food.fp7 has 3 tables in it. When I'm in Clients.fp7, I go to Manage > Database and I'm looking for any reference to Food.fp7. It's not contained in Clients; it's not there. Then I go to Manage > External Data Sources - there's simply no reference to Food.fp7. Yes, it is existant and the same folder. I can call it up seperately in FM and work with it. Looks like I have to go back, and re-create Food.fp7's tables inside of Clients.fp7 making a total now of 10 tables to create lookups, and calculations.

Originally I thought you could reference an .fp7 from anywhere in a FM solution.

I wish someone could show me how.....

H

[doughemi]

Go to Manage-->Database...

Click the Relationships tab

Click the far left icon at the bottom of the window

Select Filemaker Data Source from the Data Source dropdown

Navigate to the Food.fp7 file and open it

Select the table desired

A TO of the selected table appears in the Relationship diagram

Create the relationship as required

Repeat as required

[Hoib]

Bless you.....

That's all I can say.