Link from…Link to….

[Petra Jovkov]

Hallo Brendan,
is there a way to link forms to/from multiple forms?

What I have already:
The “members” form links TO the “achievements” form (with backlink)
The “achievements” form links FROM the “members” form.
The “locations” form links TO the “events” form (with backlink)
The “event” form links FROM the “locations” form.

What I would also need:
The “achievements” form should also link FROM the “events” form
The “event” form should also link TO the “achievement” form (with backlink)

:-) Hope you could follow…

If there is no way to do this now…will there be an update in the future?
Thx and BR
Petra

[Brendan]

Hi Petra,

Right now you can only have a record be linked to from only one parent record. This is because each record has only a single pointer in it telling it who is linking to it.

I have made a change to this area to improve on this with my migration to the Couchbase Lite database engine. So it’s coming. But still 4 or 5 months away from being ready.

Thanks!

Brendan

[AngriBuddhist]

Hi,

I just started using TapForms to build my first database and immediately came upon this issue.

Are “link to” improvements still part of the upcoming update? If so, can you explain what those improvements might be?

I know that it’s not a good idea to give an exact date, however, do you have a timeframe for the iOS version of the update?

Thank you for your time.

[Brendan]

I’m targeting a June release, but I don’t know exactly when in June, nor whether it will slip to July. I just don’t want to release anything too early before it’s ready.

But yes, I have already made the improvements to the Link to Form field so that you can have multiple links to the same record. Basically the one-to-many relationship will work much like the current many-to-many in that respect. You’ll be able to choose an existing record to link to and it will be moved from wherever it is currently linked to into the record you’re working on. Currently the only way to link to a child record is to create the record from the parent record.

[AngriBuddhist]

Thanks for the quick response.

I’m uncertain how the “moved from wherever it is currently linked to into the record you’re working on” is going to pan out. I’m hoping to build a spiderweb of links.

I have my fingers crossed for a June 20th release, I know not to be too hopeful, as I’m building a database for a very silly reason, to play a game called No Man’s Sky.

[Brendan]

I have no specific date in mind yet. Like a fine wine, it’ll be released when it’s ready :-)

What I mean by moving a linked record, I mean, if you link Record 1 to Form A, but then you’re editing Form B and you choose Record 1, Record 1 will no longer be linked to Form A, but will be moved to Form B. That’s basically the way a One to Many Link Type works. But in the current version you can’t move records. You need to just create the linked record by clicking the + button on the parent form’s Link to Form field.

Hope that makes a bit more sense.

[AngriBuddhist]

Is there any possibility that a record will have more than one pointer?

Again, thank you for your time. I won’t take up any more of it.

[Brendan]

For a many-to-many yes, you can do that. But right now not for a One to Many because of the way the pointer is stored. Currently a record can have only a single parent. But in the next version, a record can have multiple parents, similar to the many-to-many Link Type.

[AngriBuddhist]

I use the Many to Many Link to and am aware of using it as a work around for a One to Many. Using this can work although the presentation, interface and sometimes the functionality don’t match the form’s intention.

I feel that you may have answered my question already but that I’m failing to understand the answer. Maybe I’m asking the wrong question.

[AngriBuddhist]

This form has 2 One to Many Links. Changing one, changes the other.

In the next version, could this form function as you’d expect?

Attachments:

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[Brendan]

Yes, in the next version, you’ll be able to have multiple inverse one-to-many relationships. Changing one won’t clear out the others.

[AngriBuddhist]

Perfect.

Thank you.

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