In previous versions of FileMaker, if you wanted to view the portal data sorted by one of its fields, you had to specify this option in the relationship itself. FileMaker Pro 7 has added the capability to sort portals by specifying the sort order in the Portal Setup.
1 .Go to the current table layout with the portal to be sorted and switch to Layout mode (Control+L/Command+L).
2 .Double-click in the portal. When the Portal Setup dialog box appears, click the Sort portal records check box (Figure 6.34).
3 .
When the Sort Records dialog box appears, double-click the sort field(s) in the left column to add them to the Sort Order column on the right (Figure 6.35). You can specify ascending, descending, or custom sort order. Click OK twice to finish. The portal will now display the related records in the order you chose.
To make a portal more readable, you can format it using alternating row colors. If you check the Alternate Background Fill option in the Portal Setup dialog box, the portal will display with different colors (or fill patterns) in each row (Figure 6.36).