Track: Technical
T-105 - Performance Tuning Virtual Lists
Presented By
L. Allen Poole
L. Allen Poole
Creative Database Solutions NW
Portland, OR
Kevin Frank
Kevin Frank
Kevin Frank & Associates
Arcata, CA
Invented and popularized by Bruce Robertson, virtual list is an approach to data presentation where the data to be viewed is first assembled as one or more text objects and then rendered via calculation fields in a dedicated “virtual list” table. Virtual list is not one technique, but a series of related and overlapping techniques that can be employed according to a) developer preference, and b) the demands of the particular situation. We will be exploring a number of these techniques during this session, including some that that have only now become practical in FMP v. 22.

Why bother? Virtual list enables you to generate reports (reports that would normally require the creation of multiple helper fields and/or utility relationships and/or special-purpose utility tables) without touching table schema in your main solution or making any modifications to the Relationships Graph, and is worth considering when, for example, you need to…

• Combine entities from multiple tables into a single report or portal
• Produce a cross-tab report
• Create dashboard interfaces
• Summarize/aggregate the same data more than once on the same page
• Produce a report where, if you rely on traditional FileMaker methods, you will need to define single-purpose utility fields, relationships, and/or tables

Your client can mock up any report (no matter how un-FileMaker-friendly), and virtual list will provide a general purpose tool to accommodate that request and make it a reality… including reporting challenges that would be extremely difficult to handle via standard FileMaker approaches.
Session Rating
Average: 5/5 (1 vote)
Comments
Eric Matthews Oct 24, 2025 10:16 am

No rating yet? I can\'t get enough of the kind of ideas presented at this session.

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