Database Reference
In-Depth Information
4.
From the Current Table pop-up menu, choose Jobs
.
Here's where you venture into unfamiliar waters. The Current Table pop-up menu lets
you pick any table occurrence on your graph (
Figure 5-17
).
5.
Select the Name field from the Jobs table and then click OK
.
FileMaker adds the Jobs::Name field to the text block. It should read
“<<Jobs::Name>><<Expense>>.” The Expense field is local, so it doesn't have to in-
clude its table name in the text block. But the related field shows its full name, just so
everybody is clear on where the data is coming from.
6.
Type a colon (:) and a space between the two merge fields
.
The text block contains the text “<<Jobs::Name>>: <<Expense>>.” The single colon
here is just punctuation, and doesn't mean anything special to FileMaker. The double
colon ( :: ) inside the Merge field, on the other hand, is used by FileMaker to show
that the field Name comes from the Jobs table occurrence.
Now when you view an Expense record in Browse mode, you'll see data from the Jobs table
on the Expenses layout. You could have used a regular field instead of a merge field. In fact,
sometimes that makes more sense, like when you might want to edit data from both contexts.
But in this case, the related data appears in a text block that serves as a title for the record
and doesn't need to be editable. So a merge field (which you can't click into in Browse
mode) is the best solution. See
Field Behavior
for a way to make regular fields non-enter-
able.
If you were to use a regular field instead of a merge field to display related data, you
wouldn't see the fully qualified name, in this case “Jobs::Name”, in the field. Instead the
name will appear as “::Name” to show it's a related and not a “local” field. To see where a
regular field comes from, select it and look at the Inspector's Data tab. The “Display data
from” box shows the field's fully qualified name.
