Restoring Portal Row

[jackk]

I have a school administration application. On a Staff page that shows a Teacher's record, I have two portals. On the left, the portal shows a list of the Courses taught by that Teacher. Clicking on one of these portal rows displays the Students taking that Course in the right portal. A button next to the Student's names takes the user to a screen where he/she can enter the Student's grade for that Course. My problem: on returning to the Staff page, I've lost both portals' focus (they've both returned to line 1). I've tried saving the portal rows, both as global fields and variables, but these both seem to be "automatically" changed (ie not under control of a SetField or SetVariable statement). I am at a loss to figure out what is going on and how to address/solve this problem. Thanks for any help or insights.

[comment]

In which table is "the Student's grade for that Course"?

[jackk]

The tables are: Staff ==>(1 to m) Courses ==>(1 to m) Registrations ==> (m to 1) Students. The Registrations hold the StudentID, the CourseID and the Grades.

[comment]

Staff -< Courses -< Registrations >- Students

Why don't you make the right portal look into Registrations? That way you can view/enter the grades directly, without leaving the current record and layout.

[jackk]

This is difficult, as an important component of the grade is a text comment, usually of several paragraphs, in which the teachers formatting. There is just no room, with the list of courses on the left and the list of students (with a grade summary) on the right.

[comment]

Ok, then make your button go to the related record in a new window. When they are done, let them close the window and return exactly to where they were before.