Database Reference
In-Depth Information
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS: FEELING OUT OF SORTS?
When I haven't sorted my records, the Status toolbar says “Unsorted.” What order is that, exactly?
Is it completely random?
Remain calm. When the records are unsorted, they're in creation order. So the first record you ever
created (but haven't deleted yet) comes first, followed by the next one you created, and so on.
Creation order is FileMaker's natural order for the records. Once you sort the records, they stay in
that order until you sort again or explicitly unsort them. (In the Sort dialog box, use the Unsort but-
ton.)
Whew, that's a relief. But if I create a new record while I'm viewing a list that's sorted, I can't al-
ways tell where the new record will appear
.
Yes, that can be disorienting. The record lands in a different place in the list depending on how your
data is sorted. If it's sorted by Last Name only and you duplicate a record with “Adama” in the Last
Name field, the new record appears at the end of all the Adama records. But if you have a multisort
by Last Name and then by First Name, then the duplicate record appears right after the original. In
other words, FileMaker creates the new record
within
the sort order you've chosen. You can avoid
this confusion by unsorting your list before you create new records. In that case, they'll appear at the
end of the found set, as God intended.
I've just sorted a found set of records and everything looked fine until I edited the data. My record
was number 20 in the sort order, but as soon as I finished editing it, the record jumped to record
number 1. What the heck just happened?
If you tell FileMaker to sort the records by Last Name and then edit the last name data in one of
your records, FileMaker dutifully puts the edited record into its new position in the sort order when
you commit the new record. You'll probably notice a flash as the topic icon updates to show the re-
cord's new record number. It's important to remember that you won't get the resorting behavior un-
less you edit the data in one of the fields you've just sorted by.
Alarming as this is when you're looking at one record, it's even more alarming if you're viewing a
found set of records in List view. In that case, it may even look like your newly edited record has
disappeared because it's changed order so much that it's no longer visible on your screen.
But you're in control. At the bottom of the Sort dialog box (
Figure 1-16
)
, there's an option that
gives you a break from all the automatic sorting. At the bottom left of the dialog box, uncheck the
“Keep records in sorted order” checkbox. Now FileMaker won't resort your edited records until you
ask it to.
Each sort field has an
order
associated with it. Most of the time, you'll choose either “As-
cending order” or “Descending order.” For numbers, Ascending means from smallest to
largest and for text, that's A to Z. The Descending option is the reverse (largest to smallest or
Z to A). Once you've selected a field on the left, you can turn on one of these radio buttons
before
you click Move, and the field has the setting by the time it makes it to the Sort Order
