Design Questions

[life036]

Hey Fellas, I'm designing a database right now to keep track of Employees and their devices which are using Class C IP addresses in the 192.168.1.x range. I'm using Filemaker Pro 5.5.

It's a relational database with an employee table, a devices table, and an accounts table. The employee table has two portals to the other tables, which display the most important info. Right now my plan is to pre-create all 254 IP Address records, with no other info except a unique IP address. What I then want to do is make a script for a portal button that will bring up the list of existing IP Aadresses from the devices table, ask you to choose which IP address you want to use, and input the Employee_ID (Employee_ID is the key field for the employees table and the relationship field for the devices table) into the record for the IP you've chosen.

My main goal here is to make it so that I can easily see and choose from a list of all 254 IP addresses (whether they're in use or not), and be able to assign them to an employee through the use of a button in the portal.

Does it seem like this can be done? I know next to nothing about making scripts, so I'm a little lost.

And is the design OK? Am I missing something here that will make this a lot easier? Like using some other type of field than number for my IP addresses?

If anyone wants to see what I'm talking about, you can download it at:

http://64.75.136.42/misc/tracker.zip

I'd really appreciate any help or ideas.

Thanks guys!

 

[JeanW]

Making a list with 250+ items to choose from will work, yes, but I think every user will try to avoid working with it.

If all the IP addresses are in the range 192.168.1.xx, one possible way to go is to script your IP field along these lines, after making a field X
Set field (your IP field;"192.168.1." & fieldX).

This way the first part will be filled in by the system and you only have to fill in the ever changing xx part.

If you want to use the FM templates, make sure to remove all the fields and all the scripts you don't need.
Ad a not to the script name, untill you're sure the script isn't used by your application.
Ad a prefix like zc_ to all the fields you don't use.
Sorting on fieldname in the define field section will bring the not used fields together at the bottom.

HTH