Demo file: FM-22-Pseudo-Indexing.zip (works w/ FM 16 or later)
When I wrote about Sort Values and Unique Values back in 2017, I made passing reference to an article I’d written a couple years previously on the topic of “pseudo indexing“, i.e., displaying a list of unique values for a specific field for a found set, rather than for all records.
Actually, I wish things were that simple. Full disclosure: there was the original FM 13 demo/article. Then when FM 16 was released, I did a second demo/article, “FM 16 Pseudo Indexing”. Recently I discovered a flaw in the approach I used in the FM 16 article, so I am pulling that demo and article off line in favor of this one.
Today we’re going to dust off the old pseudo indexing demo, and update it to take advantage of various FileMaker functions and innovations that were not available back in 2015. Why bother? Here’s why: the new implementation…
- is simpler (has fewer moving parts)
- scales better
- is less brittle (prone to breakage if schema is renamed)
- enables you to bring new fields on board faster
- can sort the pseudo index in ascending or descending order
