Oldbie/Newbie Portals/Relationship Query
Posted: Fri Sep 17, 2004 11:23 amBefore retirement, I used for years the old Filemaker 3, that's right, Three, on the job. Now, in retirement, I have upgraded to a Mac G5 and bought Filemaker 7, so portals, tables and complex linkages other than lookups are new to me.
I want to create a database of my jazz collection. Starting with the Music database that came with the program, I have added to the basic album layout:
1) a repeating field for the musicians on the album, which looks up their insruments from a new, separate musicians table, and
2) my first try at a portal, one that draws from a third table for songs that supplies composer, lyricist and historical notes for each tune.
What I would like to be able to do is:
a) to click on a musician in a layout of that table and then trigger a search for all albums he/she is on, i.e., reporting a list of the albums on the original table. Even better if they are clickable to take me to the individual album page.
b) to click on a song from the song table to find all albums the song is on.
Each of the above would use only a direct linkage of two tables. However, would it also be possible to click on a song, for instance, and get a list of all the musicians that have played that song? Even better sorted by alpha and including the album titles? This seems to mean linking the song table to the musicians table, when each is already linked separately to the albums table, and I don't know if you can do that, essentially form a circle of links among three tables.
Finally: I have read elsewhere an asseertion by a developer that repeating fields are now passe. I never bothered to learn how to get arouond the searching limitations they had in the days of old. Is there a better way to deal with song and musician lists on the album page and still have search capabilities? I am now mucking around in some thick books on the program in search of enlightenment with little success so far.
Jim Young
I want to create a database of my jazz collection. Starting with the Music database that came with the program, I have added to the basic album layout:
1) a repeating field for the musicians on the album, which looks up their insruments from a new, separate musicians table, and
2) my first try at a portal, one that draws from a third table for songs that supplies composer, lyricist and historical notes for each tune.
What I would like to be able to do is:
a) to click on a musician in a layout of that table and then trigger a search for all albums he/she is on, i.e., reporting a list of the albums on the original table. Even better if they are clickable to take me to the individual album page.
b) to click on a song from the song table to find all albums the song is on.
Each of the above would use only a direct linkage of two tables. However, would it also be possible to click on a song, for instance, and get a list of all the musicians that have played that song? Even better sorted by alpha and including the album titles? This seems to mean linking the song table to the musicians table, when each is already linked separately to the albums table, and I don't know if you can do that, essentially form a circle of links among three tables.
Finally: I have read elsewhere an asseertion by a developer that repeating fields are now passe. I never bothered to learn how to get arouond the searching limitations they had in the days of old. Is there a better way to deal with song and musician lists on the album page and still have search capabilities? I am now mucking around in some thick books on the program in search of enlightenment with little success so far.
Jim Young