Using Multi-criteria Relationships
In the portal that lists everyone in a particular company that we created earlier, it would be nice if the records displayed in the portal did not include the current name. You can do that by creating a multi-criteria relationshipone that uses multiple fields to create a relationship.Using the multi-criteria relationship capa bility in FileMaker Pro 7 and the Full Name calculation field we created in Chapter 4, "Calculation Fields," we can modify the Contacts by Company relationship to filter out the current name from the portal. As a bonus, you can see how to use operators like greater than or not equal to to create complex relationships.
To create a multi-criteria relationship
1 .Choose File > Define > Database (Control+Shift+D/Command+Shift+D). When the Define Database dialog box appears, click the Relationships tab.2 .In the Relationships graph, double-click the relational operator between Contacts and Contacts by Company (Figure 6.63).
Figure 6.63. Modify the Contacts by Company relationship to filter out the current record.
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Figure 6.64. Choose the Not Equal To operator from the drop-down list.
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Figure 6.65. The modified relationship will filter out the current record.
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Figure 6.66. The portal will display all records from the same company except the current one.
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Figure 6.67. Multi-criteria relationships with more than one operator type are displayed with an X in the relationship operator box.
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File Maintenance
As a file grows with use, its file size will grow too. This can slow down operations like Finds and Sorts. You can trim the file down using the File > Save a Copy As > Compacted Copy command (Figure 6.68). When you save the copy and use the compacted copy (smaller) option, FileMaker creates a new version of the file, adding the word "Copy" to the file name. Once you have the new version, you can close the original file, rename it, and then rename the smaller version with the original name.
Figure 6.68. A compacted file will take up less room on the hard drive and result in better performance.

