Making a List on a Form View

[Rick Horowitz]

I feel like I should know how to do this, but when I think about it, the only ways I know how to do it will not allow another part of what I want. 

 

What I'm after is to make something like a rolodex. The way I know how to do it, you end up with a list of found records, with a script for the alphabetical "filter," when you want that. 

 

The thing is that the only way I know to do this, you end up with a small body part, like in the Contacts starter solution. But I also want to have my virtual list sidebar alongside, because that's how I'm handling my navigation between layouts. 

 

Obviously, the way I know how to make the rolodex is in conflict with the size of body needed to fit the portal for the virtual list sidebar. 

 

Is there a way to have a layout that presents records in a list form, but with other elements on the layout that are larger in size than a row of the list (without causing a huge gap between each row of the list)? 

 

The only other way I can figure to do it is to not use the Person table for the context of the layout, and then add a portal. But that seems a little odd when the only things on the layout would be the alphabetical scripted buttons, the list, and the virtual list sidebar menu. 

 

Thanks. 

 

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Rick Horowitz

Fielmaker n00b

[Mark Scott]

Hi Rick,

 

Does Todd Geist's Master-Detail technique provide you with what you're looking for?  It allows you to put a portal in your form-view layout that lists all the records in the current found set, alongside a detail area showing the current record.  Clicking a portal row takes you to the selected record.

 

hth,

 

Mark

[Rick Horowitz]

Oh, wow. I'm not totally stupid. 

 

After finally getting the Virtual List Portal Sidebar menu to work for my solution, and then running into this roadblock on the list, I started thinking, "I wonder if the same type of procedure could be used to create my list." 

 

It appears that it is essentially the same. 

 

So now I'm off to larn me that Master Detail thingy. 

 

Thanks! 

 

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Rick Horowitz

Filemaker Pro n00b

[Mark Scott]

Hi Rick,

 

Are you hosting over a WAN or wanting to show a fairly large number of records in the master list (or — not recommended — both)?  If so, see Todd's original version, here, along with Daniel Wood's comments here.  As Daniel suggested, I'd recommend virtualizing an unstored field [= Get ( RecordID )] in your Contact table, then linking from the Master Row table to a stored instance of the same in a second occurrence of your Contact table.  (Your match field has to be stored on the distal side of a relationship, but you want to grab your ID list from an unstored instance because FMS sends the complete internal ID list before (way before, depending on found set size) actual record data, and FMP can/will gather those IDs into your $$Variable before receiving the stored record data.)  Also note that the new summary field type "ListOf" is the new, fasted way to gather the IDs; prior to FM13, Hyperlist held that title.

 

hth,

 

Mark

[Rick Horowitz]

Thanks, Mark. 

 

At the moment, I'm still very much in development, and unsure how I'm going to ultimately deploy. The solution I'm working on is intended primarily for solo-practicing criminal defense attorneys. I've thought about using a VPN, but at the moment what I'm developing is intended to live on my laptop only. Maybe someday it would go beyond that. 

 

As I note in my signature line all the time, I'm a "n00b" at FMP13. I was, once upon a time, the Director of Information Systems for a very large company, with programmers working under me. I've used other programming environments. I wrote a module for the MRTG (multi-router traffic grapher) that was distributed a couple decades ago, worldwide, written in perl. But (also a couple decades ago) I've only worked with the Claris FM product prior to this past month or so. 

 

I get the WAN problem, as one reason I started working on my own solution is the memory of a commercial product I bought once that lost years of my records when I tried to open the application over a WAN (which was supposed to work, but didn't, for similar reasons to those you're warning me about here). 

 

It seems I really need to dig into this "Virtual List" stuff, because I've already spent a couple or so weeks working on Petrowski's Virtual List Portal Sidebar to develop a menu, and have it (as far as I can tell) doing everything I'd ever hoped for. But then I wanted to do a kind of "list view" alongside the sidebar, and couldn't figure out how. That's when Master List was recommended to me. 

 

I now have that working for me, except that I'm trying to find a way to create a different-colored row when the row is hovered over. That's not going so well. From what I can see, the button that sits over the portal row can't be colored (actually, I want to use a gradient) because it obliterates the text underneath. 

 

And that's where I am right now. 

 

Thanks for your tip. At the moment, my small solution-on-a-laptop causes me to be less concerned about the WAN issues I may run into down the road. Learning to deal with cosmetics is a great problem. 

 

Again, thanks for your tip, which I will definitely keep in mind as I expand things, 

 

Rick Horowitz

Filemaker Pro 13 n00b