How to create a blank first "item" in a value list from another file?
am 14.11.2007 18:24:48 von Christoph Bouthillier
FMP 6.04 / Win XP2
Dear Listeners:
Maybe someone can help with the following:
In file A there is a text field. It is populated by means of a (*very
long* - 7000+ entries) pop-up list taken from an external file B.
No problem so far of course, works just fine and fast.
In order to allow the user to change the field value from an existing value
into "blank" I could of course add a button besides the field to clear it,
or a dialogue where the user is invited to either keep the value, delete it
or choose a new value. For optical and visual simplicity reasons I'd rather
prefer not to do that.
Instead, I'd like to have the first item in the pop-up list blank, just as I
can do with a 'hand-made' value list within file A. So far I have not
succeeded and have as a provisional measure added a record in file B with
the value "000". This is shown on top of the list. When filled in, this
technically in the database would not bother anybody but it just does not
look nice. An empty record would not be shown as part of the list.
Is there a trick to allow for a blank first item line to be shown - and
used - from an external pop-up list?
TIA
--
Met vriendelijke groet / Mit freundlichen Gruessen / With kind regards
Christoph Bouthillier
p o s t <> oh-no-spam t e k s t o t a a l << d o t >> c o m
Forget the oh-no-spam
Re: How to create a blank first "item" in a value list from another file?
am 16.11.2007 06:20:18 von Helpful Harry
In article <53e78$473b2fb1$59dc4456$11613@news.speedlinq.nl>,
"Christoph Bouthillier" wrote:
> FMP 6.04 / Win XP2
>
> Dear Listeners:
>
> Maybe someone can help with the following:
>
> In file A there is a text field. It is populated by means of a (*very
> long* - 7000+ entries) pop-up list taken from an external file B.
> No problem so far of course, works just fine and fast.
>
> In order to allow the user to change the field value from an existing value
> into "blank" I could of course add a button besides the field to clear it,
> or a dialogue where the user is invited to either keep the value, delete it
> or choose a new value. For optical and visual simplicity reasons I'd rather
> prefer not to do that.
>
> Instead, I'd like to have the first item in the pop-up list blank, just as I
> can do with a 'hand-made' value list within file A. So far I have not
> succeeded and have as a provisional measure added a record in file B with
> the value "000". This is shown on top of the list. When filled in, this
> technically in the database would not bother anybody but it just does not
> look nice. An empty record would not be shown as part of the list.
>
> Is there a trick to allow for a blank first item line to be shown - and
> used - from an external pop-up list?
>
> TIA
You can't make a blank entry when taking the Value List from a field.
FileMaker automatically ignores "blank" fields (that includes empty,
only spaces or only tabs or only non-letter/number characters - in fact
it includes a lot of other things too, for example "5" and ":5" are
seen as the same value).
Instead of a value of "000" you could have a value of "None" (or
"Unselected" or similar) which at least makes it obvious to the users.
Helpful Harry
Hopefully helping harassed humans happily handle handiwork hardships ;o)