Database Reference
In-Depth Information
list. It's OK, though, if you move the field over before you think about the order. In this case,
from the Sort Order list, just click to select the field and then pick the order. Each field in the
Sort Order list shows a bar chart icon representing the order assigned to it, which matches the
icons next to each radio button.
If you change your mind and don't want to sort after all, click Cancel, and FileMaker forgets
everything you've done while in this window.
The Status toolbar lets you know if your records are sorted (no surprise there). Below the Re-
cord Count, it says Sorted if you've done a sort, and Unsorted otherwise.
TIP
Once you've done a sort, the Sort dialog box remembers the sort order, so if you forget how the re-
cords are sorted, just press Ctrl+S (
⌘
-S) to check.
Multiple Sort Fields
FileMaker lets you pick more than one field to sort by, which comes in handy when you have
lots of records with the same data in some fields. For example, you might often have several
people in your database with the same last name. If you just sort by last name, there's no
telling in which order the like-named people will fall. In this case, it would be ideal to sort by
last name first and then, when the last names are the same, break the tie using the first name.
To set up this scheme, open the Sort dialog box using Records→Sort Records or Ctrl+S (
⌘
-
S) and then add the First Name field to the Sort Order list after the Last Name field. The or-
der in which you list the fields is important: The first field you want to sort by (called the
primary
sort field) has to be at the top of the list, followed by each subsort field in order. In
this example, the Last Name field is the primary sort field, followed by First Name. You can
see the results of this multiple sort in
Figure 1-17
. If your sort fields don't appear in the de-
sired order in the Sort dialog box, fret not. FileMaker provides a convenient way to shuffle
them around. Drag the double arrow immediately to the left of any field in the sort list to re-
arrange it as needed.
NOTE
If you change your mind about one of the fields in the Sort Order list, click it. The Move button
changes to Clear, and a click removes the selected field from the list.
