I'm redoing a db. It doesn't do what's it's intended to e.g make it
easy to...

- add info in structured way
- review structured info

I'll need more navigation scripts. One way is using Go to Layout
[Get(ScriptParameter)] - one navigation script with different
parameters. I'm reading "Using FM 7" by Steve Lane, Bob Bowers, Scott
Love & Chris Moyer, and they say this:

"...consider where your script parameters live: attached to the
however-many buttons you
have in your database. If you use this approach, you will essentially
hard-code all your layout
names to your button assignments.

If you need to change the layout to which a particular set of buttons
points, you'll be stuck
editing all the parameters of those buttons. This will also be true for
a simple renaming of a
layout. This dependency nearly obviates the advantages of a single
navigation script by
giving up flexibility."

They recommend using a "mediator table". I'm trying to understand how
it works. Can someone explain it in words of one syllable or less ?

First thing: there's no magic. It works via a table and script. The
table is copied to allow a self-join. The self-join is used by fields
in the table which are calculations based on values looked up from the
other table. These looked up field values are available as global
values to the script (I think). The script just goes to the destination
layout based on the global values which are in turn based on the
self-relationship between copies of the mediator table. This means the
data in the mediator tables is the stuff that determines the
destination layout.

This is what messrs Steve Lane, Bob Bowers, Scott Love & Chris Moyer
mean by "some of the system logic is now held in data".

What I'm not getting is this: if I want to script going from layout_A
to layout_B, I can understand how that works with Go to Layout
[Get(ScriptParameter)]. You write layout_B into the Script Parameter
dialogue box: no mystery there. It's very literal.

I don't see how that specific intention to go from A to B is hard-coded
into the data of a "mediator table". Plus, what happens if sometimes
you want to go to layout_C from layout_A based on what a user chooses
to put into a field in layout_A ?

Any light that anyone can shed would be appreciated.

Marmot