FileMaker Pro 9: The Missing Manual

What Is a Layout?

If the tables form the heart of a database, layouts give it a face. When you design a layout, you feel like you’re working in a graphics program: You can change the fonts, paste in your logo, make the background light fuchsia, and drag the fields around as though they’re little onscreen Lego blocks. A single database may look like a White Pages, a “Hello! My Name Is” name tag, a glossy brochure, or a library card catalog index card. FileMaker displays the same information—but how it displays that information is up to you.

Better yet, a single database can contain as many layouts as you want; each shows the data in a certain way for a specific purpose. Figure 4-2 shows the People database with one possible layout.

Figure 4-2. This is the People database, too. It has the same fields and the same records as Figure 4-1—it’s even the same file. Only the layout has changed. It’s been redesigned and has a pop-up menu to make for easier data entry.

Types of Layouts

You can make layouts for just about anything. Most databases start off with a few common kinds of layouts for the most basic needs. Then, over time, you usually add more layouts to meet specific needs. When thinking about layouts, you should be thinking about how you’ll want to see the data—what kinds of information should be onscreen at the same time, for example—and how you want to print your data (printable lists, name tags, special forms, envelopes, statements, reports, and so on). Here are some common kinds of layouts:

• Detaillayouts show all (or nearly all) fields on the screen for one record at a time—a full employee profile, for example. You use detail layouts for most, if not all, of your data entry. If you have a lot of fields, you can even create more than one detail layout: Contact Info, Emergency Info, and Payroll Info, for example.

  Note

  You’ve already encountered a detail layout. Every FileMaker database is born with one starter detail layout. It always looks like the one in your People database in the previous chapter—downright boring.

• Listlayouts show multiple records at one time, in a scrolling list. They usually show less information from each record than a detail layout so that more records can fit on the screen.

• Tablelayouts are designed to work best in table view (see Form View). Like a list layout, they show lots of records at once, but unlike a list layout, it doesn’t matter how the fields are arranged on the layout itself, since table view always looks like a spreadsheet.

• Reportlayouts are designed for printing (see Printing and Preview Mode). They usually show multiple records in a list form, often with a title at the top and summary information at the bottom. Reports can even have groups of data and intermediate summaries or running totals.

• Envelope and Label layouts format the data so that you can print it directly onto an envelope or a sheet of peel-and-stick labels. This layout makes addressing envelopes to people in your database a breeze. FileMaker can automatically create layouts for many envelope sizes and common label formats.

UP TO SPEED: Views and Layouts

FileMaker learners often confuse views and layouts. Both affect the way FileMaker displays your data. You can switch from layout to layout or view to view with ease. And you hear a lot about lists, tables, forms, and so forth when talking about either. So what’s the scoop?

First of all, in every FileMaker window, you have a layout and a view selected at all times. Each layout is usually designed to work best with a certain view. Detail layouts are usually shown in form view, while list and report layouts usually use list view. For instance, if you have a Client List layout, you typically use list view.

Most of the time, the layout tells FileMaker how each record should look on the screen: where different fields appear, what fonts, sizes, colors, and pictures show up, and how much space it all takes up. When you pick a layout, FileMaker uses it to decide how things look.

The view, on the other hand, tells FileMaker what to do with the layout. In form view, it shows one record, using the layout to decide how that single record should look. In list view, it shows all the found records, each below the one before it. The layout dictates how each of those records should look, and you use the scroll bar to zip through them. In table view, FileMaker ignores the layout almost entirely. It pays no attention to how fields are arranged, or what colors or pictures you’ve used to decorate things. Instead, it shows a clean, simple list just like a spreadsheet. The only say the layout has in how things look is in which fields you see, and how FileMaker formats each individual field.

Very often, you create both a detail layout and a list layout for each table in your database. The list provides an easy way to scroll through records and find what you’re looking for without getting data overload. When you’re ready to see all the data, you switch to the one-at-a-time detail layout.