Thx.

I’m just getting my feet wet with FM. Coming from a mostly HTML/CSS background, this is a bit foreign to me. I’m digging in and trying to learn how to do layouts with FM effectively and intuitively.

To portal rows, you want to define an unstored calc in the child table, resolving to Get ( Record Number ), which you then refer to in your conditional formatting calc. So…

In the child table:
recordNum__cn = Get ( Record Number )

Conditional formatting on portal object, two conditions:
Mod ( Get ( ChildTable::recordNum ) ; 2 ) = 1
Mod ( Get ( ChildTable::recordNum ) ; 2 ) = 0

When your formula evaluates true, the text will grow, but it’s containing text block will not, so the text will be pushed outside the visible area.

I picked this one up from Mr. Seedcode, John Sindelar.

You can remove these items with some judicious use of Conditional Formatting, for example you could have a conditional format statement that applies text and fill colours matching the portal background based upon the presence of a portal row record not having a value for a record ID field. A problem arises when your portal has alternating row colours. To get around this, you need to create a new field in the portal table that is an unstored calc field with Get ( RecordCount ). Then create a Conditional Formatting rule for the portal contents as follows:

PortalTable::RecordID = “” and Mod ( PortalTable::RecordGetFoundCount ; 2 ) = 0

The Text and Fill colours for this rule should match the primary portal row. You will now need to create a second rule that matches the first but instead of the condition being equal to 0 it will need to be NOT EQUAL to 0.

What we’re doing here is using the MOD statement to work out whether the total number of records in the portal is an ODD or EVEN value and applying format rules accordingly.

Of course, you will also need to provide a method of allowing users to find where to click into a portal row to create a new portal record….

Mod ( Get ( RecordNumber ) ; 2 ) = X

where X is either 0 for even numbered records, or 1 for odd numbered records.

Then, you can account for the alternating rows by creating one condition where X=1 (handles odd rows) and another condition where X=0 (handles even rows).

For example, a portal could list all of the invoices for a customer. You could place a Text Box in the portal that is set up to display “Unpaid” in red (or whatever). Then, for each condition, you simply add a boolean expression to check if the invoice is paid or not, connected with an “and”:

Condition 1:
Invoices::Paid = “Yes” and Mod ( Get ( RecordNumber ) ; 2 ) = 1

Condition 2:
Invoices::Paid = “Yes” and Mod ( Get ( RecordNumber ) ; 2 ) = 0