dmontano Posted June 13, 2008 Share Posted June 13, 2008 Well, I had been advised to put categories, subcategories, type, and subtype in their own tables after i had them all in one table. The logic given sounded reasonable...one table per entity. Now I can not seem for the life of me to build a conditional value list of these values. So I searched and found a thread where Ender commented that all values must reside in the same table. Is it absolutely impossible to create conditional value lists based on my "new" 4 tables? Could I use the last table - subtype as the basis for my values to supply the conditional value lists? Any help is appreciated. If it is not possible, why would I have been advised to break them out into 4 tables - when I had them in one to begin with? Just trying to understand the logic - that's all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maarten Witberg Posted June 13, 2008 Share Posted June 13, 2008 Can you point to that original advice and to ender's post? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dmontano Posted June 13, 2008 Author Share Posted June 13, 2008 Hi Kjoe, Maybe I have misinterpreted this - or maybe things have changed. Here are the links: http://filemakertoday.com/com/showthread.php?t=11720&highlight=conditional+value+list and the other link is here: http://filemakertoday.com/com/showthread.php?t=17916 I am truly having a hard time with this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ender Posted June 13, 2008 Share Posted June 13, 2008 Well, I had been advised to put categories, subcategories, type, and subtype in their own tables after i had them all in one table. The logic given sounded reasonable...one table per entity. Now I can not seem for the life of me to build a conditional value list of these values. So I searched and found a thread where Ender commented that all values must reside in the same table. It is still true that a conditional value list can only pull values from one source table (and optionally show a related field's value). It is not clear that this will be a problem in the structure you've outlined. I think we need to better understand your data and where you're using this conditional value list. It will help if you can provide some example data from each table, and give an example of what you'd like to have your conditional value list show for specific cases (and from which context). Or even better, provide a simple sample file with the tables, relationships, and sample data already in there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dmontano Posted June 13, 2008 Author Share Posted June 13, 2008 Hi Ender, I have gotten myself in quite a mess. It is quite complicated for me and your patience is appreciated. I have attached a sample file I have stripped out of information that is sensitive. In doing so I hope I have not made it terrible to navigate, etc. Account Name changed to: Admin No password I will try to explain as brief as possible... I have these tables: Equipment Acting as a "Main" or "Central" table to multiple "Equipment Subset" tables) Equipment Subset Tables (6 of these: capture, computing, postpress, prepress, printing, transportation) This type of subset table count may grow. (One-to-One with "Equipment") I can not get the relationship to work between the Equiment and Equipment Subset tables, but have seen it work before. In my reverse engineering - I broke it. Vendor Equipment Linking table to solve many vendors to many equipment. In order for me to create a record in any "Equipment Subset" table, I need to categorize the Equipment Subset Record during the field data entry on that subset layout. The first criteria "Category" is what puts the subset record in the "Equipment" table and establishes the one-to-one relationship between the Equipment Subset and the Equipment tables. So... I want to - and need to - strictly control the categorization of Equipment in four distinct groups: Categories, Subcategories, Types, and Subtypes. This will also be used in order to greatly assist "Finds" for equipment in a multitude of places in the solution. I have seen the auto-record creation of a related record on this file I have provided. A field inside each subset table was defined as a calulation that had the subset category value as the only value. I broke that because I was trying to get the value from a one value drop down list instead. I have no good reason why I choose the drop down - other than I struggled with the idea of not using a foreign key to establish the relationship. I wanted to stay away from calculated fields where I would have to search and replace them via Admin access instead of letting the solutions interface make that type of change. I hope you can see what I am trying to do in the sample file. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ender Posted June 13, 2008 Share Posted June 13, 2008 I'm sorry, you've got a lot going on in there and I can't tell which fields you wanted conditional value lists on. It sounded like you wanted conditional value list for the Subcategory, Type, and Subtype, but you don't currently have relationships established for those. With a relationship from equipment::Category to equipment_subcategory::Category, you can define the conditional value list to show subcategory information based on the current value in category. Attached is your file with this subcategory relationship and value list established. The same idea can be used for the others. BTW: don't use this file in production. I had to force quit a couple times because of your validations trapping me with no way to continue without entering the secret values. Yuck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dmontano Posted July 3, 2008 Author Share Posted July 3, 2008 Ender - thank you for taking the time to do that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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