Database Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 13-13. On the Report Overview page, when you click the File Name link, you see this page.
The top link on the left leads back to the Overview page. All the others just scroll the page to vari-
ous important parts. The report itself is also loaded with links. You can click any link to go to more
details about that item.
Use the DDR to help you figure out what parts of your database can safely be edited or de-
leted. Since you can so easily create tables, fields, and layouts in FileMaker, you may well
end up with extras that you don't need when your database reaches completion. You can
make your database easier to understand, and more efficient, by deleting these extra ele-
ments. But even if a database is the last word in efficiency, running a DDR is one of the best
ways to trace the designer's thinking process.
To see if—and how—a particular element is used, look at its detail. Suppose you have a
bunch of fields you'd like to delete from your database, and you want to find out whether it's
safe to do so. First, click the Tables link; fields are part of tables. You see a list of tables, with
information about how many fields each table contains, along with a list of occurrences of
each table in the Relationships graph ( Figure 13-13 ). Click the link for a table's fields, and
you see a list of all the fields in that table.
Details appear in the Field Name, Type, and Options columns for every field. Comments, if
there are any, show up in the Comments column. Any layouts or scripts that use the field are
listed in the On Layouts and In Scripts columns, respectively. You see the information in the
“In Relationships” column only if it's a key field. Fields used in layouts, relationships, and
scripts are called dependencies of those elements.
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