A Relationship Puzzle

[K1200]

I'm trying to fashion a relationship to pull together up to 20 images based on a list of Record IDs (ObjectIDs in the example). I posed a question earlier with regards to calculating the contents. Now I'm exploring how to fashion a relationship.

A main point to know: the Object records must remain unchanged by this process. In other words, they can't be flagged, which rules out using a scripted Find. Besides, I already know the necessary Record IDs.

My 2-image example does do the job ... but it's not easy to scale up. 20 Table Occurrences to support a 20-image photo contact sheet is not a good solution.

I feel like I'm overlooking some simple feature that can accomplish this easily. But which one? A day's worth of research has turned up little more that this sad fact: knowing the Record ID is of little use in Filemaker.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

[eos]

A multi-key match field, populated with 20 RecordIDs?

[K1200]

That sounds promising ... but I couldn't find any example on these forums. Earlier, I tried a repeating field key on the off chance that FileMaker could handle it, but it only linked the first occurrence.

Can you point me to an example? ... or describe how to set it up?

Thanks.

[eos]

No, a repeating field won't do. Use a standard text field (because you need multiple lines, which a number field doesn't support) as the left-side match field - it can also be a global - and populate it with a return-delimited list of the RecordIDs. FM treats every single line (value) as a separate key and finds all matching records on the right side).

Don't know if this is the solution in you specific case, but the technique is quite common and has many interesting applications.

[K1200]

Yes, I think I understand. In addition to what you described, I also found this explanation:

You can increase the number of possible matching values by entering multiple values in the match field, separated by carriage returns. You can access related data by matching any single line of your match field, according to your relationship criteria. This is sometimes called a multi-key field or complex key field.

For example, you have a simple relationship joining records in TableA to TableB based on the contents of a single field in each table, and the match field in TableA contains the values:

red

green

blue

separated by carriage returns. FileMaker Pro will match any record in TableB where the corresponding match field contains the single value red, green, or blue. However, FileMaker Pro will not return records where the match field contains the value red green blue. The carriage returns tell FileMaker Pro to treat each line as a separate value.

I think you (and this quote) mean that the result would be the equivalent of a Found Set of Object records that match the 20 Record IDs. So the problem becomes: how to place the resulting images on a layout without using a portal? (they have to print).

Thanks for your help.

[eos]

While relationships in FM normally are equivalent only to AND, multi-key fields let you throw in an OR …

Anyway, for printing you could either place e.g. 4 portals with 5 rows each (or vice versa, depending on your page orientation) of the same TO side by side, each with a different initial row, or create a multi-column layout in the Images table, to which you navigate with Go to Related Records.

[normanicus]

The only way I can see of doing it is to create a table with each record containing one field with two lines like this:

Record ID

Tag/Description

and relate that to your table containing the image records.

[K1200]

That's exactly what I did ... but only for a 6-pack of images. It's the same relationship as my 2-image relationship diagram shows, but adding IndexImg3–6 TO's.

For the moment, I'm going to hold off implementing a full 20 TO's in hopes of dreaming up some better way. One significant problem with this simple approach is that none of the displayed fields (being unstored calculated fields) are editable. So, I'm still studying the problem.

Thanks for your assistance/comfirmation.

[comment]

Your question is not clear, IMHO.