Adding a New Table to the Navigation Bar

[Rachel_Young]

Question: by reggies » Mon Mar 22, 2010 11:46 pm

Hi. I was wondering how I can create a new related table to connect with the menu navigation bar at the top.

My goal is to change the tabs on the navigation bar to the tables I use most often. (Some of which need to be renamed or created)

i.e. It would look like this (Bands Contacts Staff Calendar Orders etc...)

I thought it would be as easy as duplicating the Accounts table, changing the Primary ID to id band and adding and relating the table occurrences.
Everything seems to of worked except the system preferences show as unrelated, thus the System Logo will not appear. Also the Band name and band type will not show in list view. 

Thanks,

Mitch

ATTACHMENTS

Thanks so much for your response. Great to hear you're into music. The merge field did the trick for adding the band and band type fields to my layout.

I'm still having trouble getting the company logo to show up in the new band layout. The container field shows up as unrelated. I'm attaching two screen shots. One of the new band layout. The other of the preference relationship using the id_constant.

Mitch

ATTACHMENTS   --------------------------------------- Hey Mitch,

Good work with your file. It sounds like you are coming along.

OK, I have a little explaning to do about your problem. Don't feel bad. It is a big step for most people beginning in FileMaker to get their heads around relationships.

In "Definitions" under "Relationships" everything looks good so don't change that. The problem is that though the field in your layout might be from the preferences table, it is not from the right table occurrence. I will explane how to fix this.

1. Right click on the field and select Field/Control > Setup... (or Option, Command, F)

2. A window will appear, and to the right will be this text, "Display data from:"

3. Below the text is a field listing all the Table Occurrences in the solution. Select the Table Occurance called "T20_bands_PREFERNCES||id_constant|" (the one in your screen shot).

4. In the list of field names select "con_System_Company_Logo" and click OK.

Let us know how it goes. 
This should solve your problem, but if it doesn't go ahead and include a screen shot of the layout in Layout Mode with your next post.

Good Luck!

Calvin Mosiman Picture 3-1.png (108.05 KiB) Viewed 665 times

--------------------------------------- Hello Mitch,

Thanks for you question and good work with your own development of your database. Being a musician myself I am glad to see that the database is being put to use in the music industry.

There are a couple things that you will need to check to determine what your problem is. Since I cannot see the layout in Layout Mode I cannot tell you exactly what it is but it is probably one of the items on this list.

1. Check the layout setup and make sure that the layout is related to the "Band" table. If this sounds obvious, trust me; I have spent a lot of time looking for deep problems when they were really as obvious as being set to the wrong table.
This can be done in layout mode. In the menu bar go to Layouts > Layout Setup... This will bring up a popup window with the table that the layout is related to. "Show records from..." (your band table).

2. Check the Fields from preferences to make sure that they are from the correct table occurrance for the Preference table. 
If you at the Relationship graph there should be your band table T20_BANDS. Then there should be another table occurrance for Preferences (T20a_bands_PREFERENCES_id_constant, following FMSP's naming format). These two tables should be related by the field "id_constant" from each table. 
Then go back to you Band List View layout and change the preferences fields so that they display the data from the "T20a_bands_PREFERENCES_id_constant" Preference table.

3. Check the Merge Brackets.

The text tha tyou have in you layout for displaying the band name and type (i.e. "<<Band>>" and "<<Band_Type>>" are called merge fields. I am guessing that when you put these in you simply changed the field from "<<Account>>" to "<<Band>>". Unfortunately this does not always work.

To solve this problem enter the field and highlight the entire text. Then in the menu bar go to Insert > Merge FIeld... and a popup window will appear with a list of fields. Choose the desired field select "ok" and the text will be inserted. Though it does not look any different, it should work. (You may also do this by pressing Option, Command, M).

I hope these instructions will help you. If you still experience problems please tell us about it, and send a screen shot of the layout in Layout Mode. That will give us a better idea of how to fix the problems.

Good luck with your project,

Calvin Mosiman -------------------------- Calvin, reggies   Posts: 7 Joined: Fri Mar 19, 2010 11:26 pm

•  
•