Database Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 5-13. The table occurrences (TOs) have been collapsed so you see only key fields. Change
the TOs' display by clicking the button at the right of each TO's title bar. Tables toggle through
three settings—open, key fields only, and title bar only. On a complex graph, it's much easier to
read relationships when your TOs are partly closed, as they are here. This way, you're not distrac-
ted by the other fields in each table. If you need to see a list of all the fields in a table, you can tem-
porarily expand the appropriate TO. Or switch to the Fields tab.
If you make a mistake (say you grab the wrong field or drag to the wrong table), double click
the box in the middle of the relationship line. Here you can adjust which field is at each end
of the relationship. If you want to ax the whole relationship, click the box in the middle of
the relationship line and then press delete.
TIP
If you have a stray table occurrence (named the same as the database itself) on your Relationships
graph, just select it and then press Delete. It's a useless artifact from when the file was first created.
Since this table occurrence isn't part of your ER diagram, you can safely ignore FileMaker's protest-
ations that deleting it will break things.
Sorting a Relationship
When you drag key fields to create a relationship, you get a plain vanilla relationship. That
is, the relationship links two records together when the values in their key fields match ex-
actly. You can't create or delete records through the relationship, and it isn't sorted. Without
