FileMaker Pro 11: Advanced Tutorials
Final Touches / Hiding Trash Can
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Subtitles of the Movie (FileMaker Pro 11: Advanced / Final Touches / Hiding Trash Can)
At this point we're not going to add any major new features. We're going to work on some finishing touches to make this solution really professional. And one of the finishing touches will be to make the Trashcan Icon on this layout, the one that's in the portal, we're going to make it so that it disappears from last blank portal row, even though if you click on it really doesn't do anything because there's nothing there. It's a little confusing and I'd like to change that so it just doesn't show up at all. So in order to do this we're going to go over to Manage Database. I'm going to go over to our Products. We're going to add two fields: xtrash. That'll be a Global Container Field and then we're going to add the Trash Field, which will be a regular Container Field. So what we're going to do here is put that icon inside of our xtrash and then have it automatically Auto Enter in the Trashcan Field through an Auto Enter. Real simple, just come down here and find xtrash and that's it. That's all you have to do. So every time we create a new record, you'll put xtrash into Trash. Now, you may be worrying at this point if you put a whole bunch of these trashcans in there, that we're going to make our file balloon in size. Well, we won't because FileMaker will only store that graphic once. It sees that it's the same graphic and will store it once inside its solution. Now, in previous versions of FileMaker, used to be able to just put the xtrash Field in there and it wouldn't display on the lasts row but in current versions it does display so we have to have it Auto Enter into a real field and it's just about as good. You just need an extra field here. So let's go ahead and put these fields on the layout. We'll go over to Products and we'll go into Layout Mode. We're going to temporarily put these fields on the layout. We don't really need them on there to make it work. In fact, you probably shouldn't have them on there. So xtrash and then we'll also drag on Trash. There we go and we'll exit Layout and you can see there's nothing in there. That's because we have not populated the xtrash Field. So we'll go back over to Invoices, go into Layout Mode and very carefully make sure you select the Trash Icon. So I'm going to copy it and paste it and it looks like we got the little button on top of it so that's the tricky part. Probably best to go ahead and try copying both here. So I'm going to copy that, move back over to Products. I'll paste right here and I'll get rid of the stuff I don't want, which is that little piece of the interface there and the button. Then I'll cut it from the layout. I'll go back into Browse Mode, paste right in there. You can see it automatically goes into Trash. But it doesn't go into every record; only the ones where you modify it. We could go to each record and modify it, just paste it in here and it would do it but that's not really a great way to do that. Fortunately when you create a new record, it does automatically go on there so we'll delete that one right there. But we need to populate the existing records so all we have to do is use Replace. Replace Field Contents, Calculated Result, Find xtrash and that's it. Simple thing like that and now all of the Trash Fields are populated. So we'll go into Layout Mode. We can get rid of that stuff and now we're ready to go ahead and make a display on our Invoices Form. So what we need to do is keep that button. So I'm going to move it up a little bit like that but then get rid of our actual graphic here. Then I'm going to drag a field down here, put it right in there. Actually what I'll do is I'll, rather than do that I'll come in here and Option or Control drag one of these fields, go over to Products, find that Trash; not xtrash but Trash and then make it a little bit smaller. That's good and then I'm going to come into the Inspector, take a look at it. It's not allowing entry into Browse Mode, which we don't want. We don't want people to think this is a graphic they can change or accidentally change it and I want to crop it also. That looks good. We'll move that button back down there and see how well it works. And I think I'm probably going to have to move this field behind it over a little bit. Let's see how that works. We'll go into Browse Mode and first thing we'll check to make sure is that it's gone. Now, you can see that the button's still there. We can still click on it but you can see if we click on this, the highlight's real nice. I've gotten that button right on top of it but we want to do something about this. What if somebody goes hmm, I wonder what that is or what if they just accidentally click there? Well, we want it to go ahead and give them an appropriate message. So we'll come in here and find our script, Product Row Delete, we'll edit it, come in here and put an if statement around the whole thing. We'll say if, pull the and if all the way to the end. We'll say if is Empty, make sure I get the S in there, go to Products and we'll find our, best to check our KP Product ID. So if the KP Product is empty, it must be that you don't have a KP Product ID, which will be impossible in any record. More likely what it is is that we actually have, we have, we don't have a row there. It's just one of those blank rows and that's why it's empty. But actually what's a better way is just rather than jumping through two jumps from Lines to Products, I'm actually going to change this to Checking Lines. I think that's a better choice here. I'll put in Lines and there's the KP Lines ID and I also choose this KP Lines ID because I know I'm not going to delete the primary key out of here. It's possible the foreign key or some other field might be deleted because we don't need it anymore but the primary key is probably there to stay. So if it's empty, we'll put an else in here first, we'll show a message. And we'll say Don't Click Here. Not sure if I have a really good message for this but at least they're getting something when they click there. Don't click on this blank row. You might come up with something better but that's good enough. So if it does have something in it, then it'll do the rest of the stuff, the normal stuff it would do that we already programmed before. So we'll save that, click on here to make sure. Don't click on this blank row and if we click on this one we get the normal message which we'll click No to. So that's a nice finishing touch for our solution that when people come down here, they don't see this blank row and you can apply it to any portal with very little overhead.
Tutorial Information
| Course: | FileMaker Pro 11: Advanced |
| Author: | John Mark Osborne |
| SKU: | 34140 |
| ISBN: | 1-936334-36-4 |
| Release Date: | 2010-07-09 |
| Duration: | 14.5 hrs / 159 lessons |
| Work Files: |
Yes |
| Captions: | No |
| Compatibility: |
Vista/XP/2000, OS X, Linux QuickTime 7, Flash 8 |
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