I've been away from FileMaker for a few months and am coming back to a solution that needs some updating. I need to clean up my relationships to keep all my base table occurrences not connecting to each other, but use TOs to make the connections. So, here is a simple one: I have 3 tables, one with categories, one with roles, and one with classes. The idea is for someone to choose a category, then a role that fits that category, and then get a result which is a list of classes that role needs to take. I would like to do this all in one layout. I have 14 categories, but a couple hundred roles, and over 350 classes. The categories can be a drop down, but once someone chooses the category, they only have to pick from 50 or fewer roles. It might be better if they could see the whole list, or most of it with a slider to get to the bottom of the list. Then the classes (< 10) could appear in a particular order in their own portal (I'm guessing). I believe this problem can be solved by using TOs, but I am just not getting the right combination. I didn't know if setting up the parts of the layout would help or not.
One last question - I have done this once, but can't seem to do it again. I'd like to have a free text box that would search two separate fields. I have an original example, but I don't see how I got the free text box to show up so I could populate the global field for the find. Any ideas?
Thanks,
Ann
Starting with the simple part first, there is no such thing as a “free text box” in Filemaker. The closest to that would be a text field with global storage specified. Such a field, unless used as a match field in a relationship can be defined in any table in your solution and you can still use it.
With your categories and roles, it is not fully clear what you need. It is clear that you are describing conditional value lists or a different selection method with similar function, but in what table are you selecting those values and what does one record in that table represent?