Portals

Troubleshooting

Copying and Pasting Fields Between Files

When I copy and paste fields from a layout in one file into another file, sometimes the fields retain their proper identity, sometimes they have no identity, and sometimes they have the wrong identity. Why is that?

When you copy fields from a layout in one file and paste them into another file, they may or may not retain their identity, as you've discovered. A field retains its identity when there exists a field in the destination file that has the same source table and field name as the source field. Additionally, the layouts must be based on identically named table occurrences. (It's not enough for the source tables to be named the same.) If the table occurrences match, but no similarly named field is found in that table, the field displays when it's pasted into the destination file. If the table occurrence names don't match, the field shows up without any identity in the destination file.

Given the ease with which you can copy and paste tables using FileMaker Pro 8 Advanced, we recommend first creating a compatible schema in the destination file, and then copying your layout objects.

Determining Which Records Will Be Displayed on a Layout

I created a table occurrence that's supposed to display only invoices that are more than 60 days overdue. However, when I build a layout based on this table occurrence, I still see all the invoice records. What did I do wrong?

The problem here isn't anything you've done or haven't done, but rather your expectations. The table occurrence to which a layout is tied never determines which records from the source table are displayed on that layout. It merely determines the starting point on the Relationships Graph from which any action or object involving a relationship is evaluated. To view a set of related records, you will need to establish a perspective through which those records are viewed; in other words, you'll need a portal.

If you have a layout that's tied to an occurrenceany occurrenceof an Invoice source table, all the records from the Invoice table can be viewed from the context of that table occurrence. Think of it this way: A layout's table occurrence doesn't determine what records you can view from that layout, but rather, it determines what records the records of that table can view. So in the case of your table occurrence, which is supposed to show only invoices that are more than 60 days overdue, you'd need to view those via a portal from a layout tied, say, to a Customer table.