Hi All,

I am re-learning FM 7 to make a solution for my small business. I am in 
the planning process and thinking about the ways I want the solution to 
behavie, and the features I would like. One important one, as it is for 
most business solutions is the "Contacts". As I am a hard core mac 
user, I would love to be able to integrate in a clean way with the Mac 
OSX Address Book. One of the key features that I love about this is the 
ability to select the address format by country, as they can be very 
different.

My ideal goals are:
1. from within FM, search for an address in AB and import that address into FM.
2. either have the address be correctly formatted in FM following the 
import -or- have a simple selection pop-up list of countries and select 
the layout from that.

The question:
Now, of course, I do know I can simply have a layout for each counties 
address field layout, however, that is not what my question is. 
However, that could generate many layouts as there are many countries 
in this world. So, is there a way to use a script to change the 
position of the fields on a layout?

I imagine there is a simple way to do this as alternative concatonate 
functions, but I beleive I would not have the ability to edit the 
information after, and possibly export it.

I have looked at the plug in AB manipulator, and that seems 
interesting, but it does not include any functions for the address 
format. It also seems that there is no specific applescript command for 
this in AB.

So, if you have any suggestions, I would be very interested. And please 
- simple is better! I am by no means a master of scripting.

Thanks
Daniel

Create a calculated field in the MAC AB that concatenates the required
fields in the correct order to make up the full address based on the country
.... use the CASE statement to format for different countries.

Case(Country="Canada",... enter concatenation ... ,
Country="United Kingdom", ... enter concatenation ...
etc.
,"undefined")

Second, in the main database where you want the formatted mailing address
have 1 field called formattedaddress and the second field as contact ID#.

Make a value list based based on the contact ID # of the contact as the
first field and the Business Name as the second field from AB.
SORT by the second field (business name of contact).  Next, Format the
Contaact ID# field as as MENU list and link it to the defined value list.


Now, when you click on the formatted Contact ID#  field,  a Menu List will
appear...


such as: 23456 Acme Industries
             12333 Home depot

etc...

When you select a contact the ID number fills in and the Contact Business
Name (another field) will fill in based on a lookup relationship with the
Contact ID used as the key.

Additionally, the formatted address will fill in with the second lookup in
the formatted address field based on the same relationship but looking the
calculated field from the AB.

So ... you only need one layout ... do the formatting CASE calc in the AB
database (I am assuming you have full editing privileges to this database).

Later,


-- 
Al Lawrance
British Columbia
CANADA
--------------------------------------
ajlawrance@shaw.ca
http://www.members.shaw.ca/ajlawrance/





"learning" <infoREMOVEatTHISgratiotdesignDOTcom> wrote in message
news:413371d4_3@news.bluewin.ch...
>
> Hi All,
>
> I am re-learning FM 7 to make a solution for my small business. I am in
> the planning process and thinking about the ways I want the solution to
> behavie, and the features I would like. One important one, as it is for
> most business solutions is the "Contacts". As I am a hard core mac
> user, I would love to be able to integrate in a clean way with the Mac
> OSX Address Book. One of the key features that I love about this is the
> ability to select the address format by country, as they can be very
> different.
>
> My ideal goals are:
> 1. from within FM, search for an address in AB and import that address
into FM.
> 2. either have the address be correctly formatted in FM following the
> import -or- have a simple selection pop-up list of countries and select
> the layout from that.
>
> The question:
> Now, of course, I do know I can simply have a layout for each counties
> address field layout, however, that is not what my question is.
> However, that could generate many layouts as there are many countries
> in this world. So, is there a way to use a script to change the
> position of the fields on a layout?
>
> I imagine there is a simple way to do this as alternative concatonate
> functions, but I beleive I would not have the ability to edit the
> information after, and possibly export it.
>
> I have looked at the plug in AB manipulator, and that seems
> interesting, but it does not include any functions for the address
> format. It also seems that there is no specific applescript command for
> this in AB.
>
> So, if you have any suggestions, I would be very interested. And please
> - simple is better! I am by no means a master of scripting.
>
> Thanks
> Daniel
>

Note,

If the AB already has formatted the address based on the name of the country
then you do not need the CASE statement ... just do a lookup based on the
Contact ID# to the AB's formatted address.


"AL Lawrance" <ajlawrance@shaw.ca> wrote in message
news:3aNYc.274138$gE.137227@pd7tw3no...
> Create a calculated field in the MAC AB that concatenates the required
> fields in the correct order to make up the full address based on the
country
> ... use the CASE statement to format for different countries.
>
> Case(Country="Canada",... enter concatenation ... ,
> Country="United Kingdom", ... enter concatenation ...
> etc.
> ,"undefined")
>
> Second, in the main database where you want the formatted mailing address
> have 1 field called formattedaddress and the second field as contact ID#.
>
> Make a value list based based on the contact ID # of the contact as the
> first field and the Business Name as the second field from AB.
> SORT by the second field (business name of contact).  Next, Format the
> Contaact ID# field as as MENU list and link it to the defined value list.
>
>
> Now, when you click on the formatted Contact ID#  field,  a Menu List will
> appear...
>
>
> such as: 23456 Acme Industries
>              12333 Home depot
>
> etc...
>
> When you select a contact the ID number fills in and the Contact Business
> Name (another field) will fill in based on a lookup relationship with the
> Contact ID used as the key.
>
> Additionally, the formatted address will fill in with the second lookup in
> the formatted address field based on the same relationship but looking the
> calculated field from the AB.
>
> So ... you only need one layout ... do the formatting CASE calc in the AB
> database (I am assuming you have full editing privileges to this
database).
>
> Later,
>
>
> -- 
> Al Lawrance
> British Columbia
> CANADA
> --------------------------------------
> ajlawrance@shaw.ca
> http://www.members.shaw.ca/ajlawrance/
>
>
>
>
>
> "learning" <infoREMOVEatTHISgratiotdesignDOTcom> wrote in message
> news:413371d4_3@news.bluewin.ch...
> >
> > Hi All,
> >
> > I am re-learning FM 7 to make a solution for my small business. I am in
> > the planning process and thinking about the ways I want the solution to
> > behavie, and the features I would like. One important one, as it is for
> > most business solutions is the "Contacts". As I am a hard core mac
> > user, I would love to be able to integrate in a clean way with the Mac
> > OSX Address Book. One of the key features that I love about this is the
> > ability to select the address format by country, as they can be very
> > different.
> >
> > My ideal goals are:
> > 1. from within FM, search for an address in AB and import that address
> into FM.
> > 2. either have the address be correctly formatted in FM following the
> > import -or- have a simple selection pop-up list of countries and select
> > the layout from that.
> >
> > The question:
> > Now, of course, I do know I can simply have a layout for each counties
> > address field layout, however, that is not what my question is.
> > However, that could generate many layouts as there are many countries
> > in this world. So, is there a way to use a script to change the
> > position of the fields on a layout?
> >
> > I imagine there is a simple way to do this as alternative concatonate
> > functions, but I beleive I would not have the ability to edit the
> > information after, and possibly export it.
> >
> > I have looked at the plug in AB manipulator, and that seems
> > interesting, but it does not include any functions for the address
> > format. It also seems that there is no specific applescript command for
> > this in AB.
> >
> > So, if you have any suggestions, I would be very interested. And please
> > - simple is better! I am by no means a master of scripting.
> >
> > Thanks
> > Daniel
> >
>
>

I too am a enthusiastic Mac user and love all the integrated apps. However,
in terms of integrating Address Book with a filemaker database built for
business purposes, I do not think this is advisable.  Filemaker is capable
of making a much more powerful contacts database than Address Book, one that
is totally customised to your business needs, and that is totally integrated
with all your other tables (contact management, quotes, jobs, orders,
invoices,  and so on), and that can be networked for simultaneous use by
multiple users, both locally and remotely. Even if you don't need that level
of functionality now, you may need it in the future.

Formatting addresses by country is doable using a Case statement in a calc
field.  The calc field can then be used in whichever document layout you
need to print (orders, invoices, correspondence, and so on). The content of
calc fields can be exported. With custom functions (fm dev 7 only) and
global fields, you may even be able to make formatting editable at the user
level. Check out the merge text solution at Cleveland Consulting's custom
function page.

Bridget Eley


in article 413371d4_3@news.bluewin.ch, learning at
infoREMOVEatTHISgratiotdesignDOTcom wrote on 31/8/04 4:28 AM:

> 
> Hi All,
> 
> I am re-learning FM 7 to make a solution for my small business. I am in
> the planning process and thinking about the ways I want the solution to
> behavie, and the features I would like. One important one, as it is for
> most business solutions is the "Contacts". As I am a hard core mac
> user, I would love to be able to integrate in a clean way with the Mac
> OSX Address Book. One of the key features that I love about this is the
> ability to select the address format by country, as they can be very
> different.
> 
> My ideal goals are:
> 1. from within FM, search for an address in AB and import that address into
> FM.
> 2. either have the address be correctly formatted in FM following the
> import -or- have a simple selection pop-up list of countries and select
> the layout from that.
> 
> The question:
> Now, of course, I do know I can simply have a layout for each counties
> address field layout, however, that is not what my question is.
> However, that could generate many layouts as there are many countries
> in this world. So, is there a way to use a script to change the
> position of the fields on a layout?
> 
> I imagine there is a simple way to do this as alternative concatonate
> functions, but I beleive I would not have the ability to edit the
> information after, and possibly export it.
> 
> I have looked at the plug in AB manipulator, and that seems
> interesting, but it does not include any functions for the address
> format. It also seems that there is no specific applescript command for
> this in AB.
> 
> So, if you have any suggestions, I would be very interested. And please
> - simple is better! I am by no means a master of scripting.
> 
> Thanks
> Daniel
> 

-- 

(to email direct, replace "DOT" with "." and remove ".invalid")