Display Find Results in a Portal

[MariaAux]

Hi There,

I did a google search to learn more about displaying find results in a portal i.e. perform a find and only those resluts should be displayed within a portal and I found a couple of ideas. One was the concept of multi-key fields but I noticed the video was done with an older version of Filemaker. With FM 11, we have the ability to do a filter within a portal based on a calcualtion and I wonder whether there isn't an easier way now with FM11 to use this portal filter functionality to produce a portal with only the find results?

Is Multi-keys still the best way or is there a better way with Portal filters?

Thanks so much for your advice and time.

Maria

[Fitch]

A portal filter doesn't have any "awareness" of the found set, so it can't really help you there. A multi-key field seems like the way to do it.

[dansmith65]

Why do you want to display find results in a portal? What's wrong with displaying them in list view?

[LaRetta]

Is Multi-keys still the best way or is there a better way with Portal filters?

Hi Maria,

It is usually best to use relational filter instead of portal filter because portal filters have to evaluate all records before constraiining the results. This is great stress on your system when you have a lot of records. And since either way, you would need to collect the IDs of the record-set, it is best to use multi-line (global or calculation) in new relationship to the portal. Check out this thread for gathering IDs from a found set: http://fmforums.com/forum/topic/61394-found-set/page__hl__agn%C3%A8s__fromsearch__1

Hi Dan,

Sometimes it helps (when viewing a form layout of multiple records) to see a portal on the side of those same records. It acts as an visual index and can allow click-jumping to specific records within the found set. :)

[bruceR]

I would qualify that statement about portal filters; you can do both.

If the potential set of unfiltered records is large, then the relationship should be designed as the first filter. Portal filtering can then be used as a secondary filter.

The portal filter calculation will operate on the entire record set of values presented by the relationship. The portal filter calc operates on these records strictly in creation order, independent of how the relationship definition or portal definition sorts them.

[LaRetta]

Thanks, Bruce. Yes, many times we further portal-filter a relationally filtered relationship. Whew! That was a bite-full!

The portal filter calc operates on these records strictly in creation order, independent of how the relationship definition or portal definition sorts them.

I did not know this! I thought this was interesting but wait ... it would not really matter since all of the related records must be walked through by the filter anyway, would it? Where might knowing that sorts are ignored by portal filters, be important? After all, we are talking about filtering and not calculating, right? Thanks for stepping in.

[bruceR]

Depends on what you are trying to do with the filter calc.

For instance, assume a sorted relationship to a people table, sorted by last name; where the relation uses a global field to match on City.

Set the filter field to "Seattle". Say there are 2000 Seattle people; 75 whose last names begin with "A".

Have a script that sets variable $$names to empty and then does a refresh.

The portal filter uses this calc:

Let( $$names = List( $$names; People::LastName); Left( People::LastName; 1) = "A")

What will the portal show?

(Only the 75 Seattle people whose last names start with "A"; sorted by last name).

What will $$names contain?

(The list of all 2000 Seattle last names; unsorted.)

[bruceR]

Or consider this variation for the filter calc:

case( Left( People::LastName; 1) = "A";

Let( $$names = List( $$names; People::LastName); 1)

)

Now $$names contains the list of Seattle last names beginning with "A"; but it is unsorted.

If instead you collected the record ID values into the variable, you might have assumed it represented a sorted list. But it won't.

[MariaAux]

Thank you all so much for your invlauable advice. Got me where I wanted to be! Thanks a million

[dansmith65]

Hi Dan, Sometimes it helps (when viewing a form layout of multiple records) to see a portal on the side of those same records. It acts as an visual index and can allow click-jumping to specific records within the found set.

I'd never heard of this interface technique before; sounds interesting. I couldn't see any practial use of displaying find results in a portal, so thanks for pointing this out.

Now you got my gears turning though... This could possibly be an alternative to using a filtered portal. It would take a lot more work on the developers end, but it would allow for greater flexability for the users 'filters'.

The portal filter calculation will operate on the entire record set of values presented by the relationship. The portal filter calc operates on these records strictly in creation order, independent of how the relationship definition or portal definition sorts them.

Interesting detail. like LaRetta, I failed to see the relevance of this at first, but your examples were interesting. I can see how this aspect of the portal filter could possibly be levereged for some cool custom feature.

[Morenomdz]

Kinda reviving an old topic but I found this intresting. I have a layout that show work orders on the left, on a portal that filter by the work order status, on the right it shows the whole record that is selected on the left portal. All good.

I also have a list layout simple because the search found most of the time contain many records and my users like to visualize all the records and find the one they need, as they usualy dont have the very exact work order ID when they need to use the search, so, using the same layout design that filters the work orders by status, but filtering to show only the found set records is actualy very usefull.

Many records found showing on a list on the left, and the whole record showing all the fields on the right.

 

[Mark Scott]

Hey Morenomdz,

Wasn't sure if you had a question there (seemingly not), but your revival of the thread provides a great opportunity to point out that, since the time of the original thread, there have been some significant advances in the area of "Master-Detail" (portal-plus-detail) layouts. See, for example, Todd Geist's Master-Detail and Master-Detail 2.0 techniques at Modular FileMaker, which build upon Bruce's Virtual List technique.

(Also reminds me that it's been a while since I last checked to see what's new at Modular FileMaker—I notice that Dan Smith's got a recent entry—so I guess I know what I'm going to be doing this morning.)

hth,

Mark