That’s easy I hear you say. If you have two fields on a layout, enter data into the first field and the second field has a drop down menu with only the values that relate to the first field.
We have all done this, the drop down menu shows related values from a relationship which is based on the first field.
Enter find Mode, enter a value into field 1 and the drop down menu still shows the expected values. All good.
Now lets try this with related fields in a portal.
Enter data into the first field and the drop down menu shows the expected values.
Enter Find mode
Enter data into the first field and in the second field…….nothing.
Workaround time.
You cannot get FileMaker to generate a Related List from a related table in Find mode.
So to get round this let’s move everything back into the local table.
Create two new fields which are calculations:
List_First = List( related::First_Field ) and
List_Second = List( related::Second_Field ).
Create a new value list that shows related data based on the List_First field.
Put these fields behind the real fields in the portal with Field Entry set to Find mode only.
Change the original portal fields, setting Field Entry to Browse mode only.
Now when the user enters Find mode and clicks on the portal they are actually searching the local table and the value list will now work.
Happy user.
Just a few warnings to this: If there are a lot of related records these new fields may slow things down a bit.
Also you might want to put some conditional formatting on the new fields so the text is the same colour as the background when in Browse mode.
