wow. more questions...

September 10, 2001

FMP 5.5.v2 Mac OS X.

i have also bought almost $100. in books to try to learn some of this... but i want to go "relational" right away and though the books are huge they often don't just GIVE me the direct answer i need without a struggle to find it in some weird section.

ok, here's what i want to do -that is kinda of important to my self-esteem - :

i have a file of people -names, room number, email (for now let's say i have no "IDs" for them) just their full name in one field. ok that's one file.

i have a second file that contains:

Desktop Macs... their ID number, a notes field, serviced by field and one of those automatic "last modified" fields that shows when the record was last modified.

i have a third file which the same as above for Laptop macs.

i want to be able to find my computers by basically two means: 1) check the person's name to see what computers they have; or, 2) check the computer ID to see who has it (where it is).

but what i'd like is be able to "tamper" with what information is returned.. that is... yes i may just want the person and the computer(s) they have and/or i would want various fields of information or all of the information returned, e.g., notes field, last modified the whole shebang.

some of the early questions i have are:

1) must "create" ID fields for files that don't contain them simply to make relationships occur?

2) is the file that search results are returned into the same as, say, the "people" file? which ever file the results are returned to, do i need to create a field for ever return i expect? and wouldn't that look funny... all these empty fields that are only for returned search info?

i guess that's enough for now.

if there is anyone who wouldn't mind of email help just on the one little project that will be just enough to really get me going? write to: (no spaces) t h e a x i s a t m a c d o t c o m

thank you all so much, already.