Linked Tables

The EasyTable Editor allows you to link a published table to the current table. It acheives this by comparing the contents of the Key Field to the content of the Linked Key Field in the sub-table chosen in the "Select Table" menu.

Overview

The EasyTable component allows you to link two published tables through a single common value in both tables. The values in the "Key Field" in the parent table are used to match against the values in the "Linked Key Field" in the sub-table, so our J15 Reference site has a table of population stats for US Georgraphic areas which lists the State of the US (California, Alaska, New York, Virginia etc. ). The site also has a table of Presidents of the US, each of which has a Home State, with values like California, Kansas, Virginia etc.

When you click on a records detail view link (described in Part 1) you are shown the detail view for that record and if there is a linked table, and if there are any matching records you are shown the list view of the sub-table. If there is no linked table or there are no matching records you will only see the detail view for that record. In our example tables you could click on the detail link for California to see the Presidents from that state.

Key Field

The "Key Field", (2) in the overview screenshot ,  is the coloum in the table you are currently editing. In this example from our J15 Reference site column with the label "Geographic area" and an ID of "146" is used as the key field. It has values like Kansas, Virginia, Nevada etc.

[Prior to FC7 the Key Field and the Linked Key Field had to be visible in both the List and Detail views.]

Linked Key Field

The "Linked Key Field", (3) in the overview screenshot ,  is the coloum in the table you are linking to, ie. not the one you are currently editing. The table you are linking to must be published for it to appear in the "Select Table" menu.

In this example from our J15 Reference site the ID 305 is the "Home State" column in the "US Presidents" table. Not surprisingly it also has values like Kansas, Virginia, Nevada etc.  However, it is important to remember that not all entries in the master table (in our example the "US Population by Geographic Region" table) will have an entry in the linked table. In our example Kansas and Virginia are the "home states" of US Presidents, however Nevada is not.

Clarification

A few users experienced problems getting the linking of tables to work, partly this was becuase of a lack of documentation (hopefully fixed now). The other reason was that in all versions prior to FC7 you could only link fields that were visible in the List View of each table.

In this example from our J15 Reference site the column with the label "Geographic area" is visible in the list view and has values that match the value of "Home State" in the Presidents table.

• EasyTable Editor Explained (Part 1)
• EasyTable Editor (Part 2) - Alias & Type & CSS
• EasyTable Editor (Part 3) - Linked Table Settings
• EasyTable Editor (Part 4) - Preferences