Following the advice I received previously about displaying the Footer
section when in View as Table mode, I have worked out how to simulate a
feature of my ancient Open Access software. For browsing records in a
database Open Access has two panes side by side. The left pane has a
list of all records in the table, sorted by an indexed field. The right
pane has the contents of all fields in the "current" record. In this way
users can quickly work through the list looking for field details.

In FM8 I have created a layout that just has a few fields in the body
section. I have enlarged the footer section and I have placed all fields
in this section. Then I went to Layout Setup and set the properties of
the Table View to include header and footer (this was the advice I
received previously from this forum). Now when I view the layout in
Table mode I get a list of all records in the body section (a vertical
elevator appears if there are to many records to fit on the screen). If
I click on a record its details are displayed in the footer section.

By clicking on the field name in the top of the body section I can
change the sorting of the list. Also Find (shift-command-F) works to
quickly go to a desired record.

This is a neat solution I thought I should share. Of course, there is a
good chance that one of the FM8 sample databases already has this feature.

If anyone is interested, I will make a sample database available for
downloading from my iDisk account.

Michael Paine

A sample of the method is now at
http://idisk.mac.com/mpaineau-Public/browse_example.fp7
(right click Save As to download from this link)

Michael Paine

Michael Paine wrote:

I have started to create a document to record some of the unusual
methods of getting things done in FM8.
See http://idisk.mac.com/mpaineau-Public...maker_tips.pdf

The document includes some tips I have learnt from this newsgroup. It is
mainly intended for my own record but it may be useful to others
starting out with FM8.

Feedback is welcome.

Michael Paine

Michael Paine wrote: