Best practice: Sorting Drop Down menu"s Contents (FM 8.5)

Hello, I have a drop down menu that lists way too many items right now
and I want to limit those values listed based on another value in the
table.

The values in the dropdown are names of projects.

In my projects table there is a value of Open or Closed when a project
is complete.

I would like my drop down to ONLY show projects that are currently
open.

It's a little unlcear to me how to get that done.

Any leads help appreciated!

- loopy

Re: Best practice: Sorting Drop Down menu"s Contents (FM 8.5)

loopymonkey wrote:
> Hello, I have a drop down menu that lists way too many items right now
> and I want to limit those values listed based on another value in the
> table.
>
> The values in the dropdown are names of projects.
>
> In my projects table there is a value of Open or Closed when a project
> is complete.
>
> I would like my drop down to ONLY show projects that are currently
> open.
>
> It's a little unlcear to me how to get that done.
>
> Any leads help appreciated!
>
> - loopy

Hello,

That can be done in current versions of Filemaker and earlier versions
as well, but the method is a bit different.

In any version, however, you need to define a relationship to the
project table, using a global field (g_status) to match with the status
field of the projetc table. There are others possibilities as well, but
this is the basic idea. You could also use a multi-line relationship in
current versions of Filemaker or define complex calculated keys (needed
in earlier versions) to filter the relationship any which way.

You then define the value list through this relationship.

HTH

Marc

Re: Best practice: Sorting Drop Down menu"s Contents (FM 8.5)

In article
<8585112a-cc4d-40a9-8103-5e2c7b9a86e8@y21g2000hsf.googlegroups.com>,
loopymonkey wrote:

> Hello, I have a drop down menu that lists way too many items right now
> and I want to limit those values listed based on another value in the
> table.
>
> The values in the dropdown are names of projects.
>
> In my projects table there is a value of Open or Closed when a project
> is complete.
>
> I would like my drop down to ONLY show projects that are currently
> open.
>
> It's a little unlcear to me how to get that done.
>
> Any leads help appreciated!

What you need is a Relationship that will retrieve only the "Open"
records, and then this Relationship can be used to obtain the data for
the Pop-up Menu's options.

First create a new Global field in the Table with the Pop-up Menu.
eg.
g_Open Global, Text

Put the field temporarily onto any Layout and type in the word "Open",
and then you can remove the field from the Layout. (Note: If you later
Save As the file using the 'Clone (no records)' option, then the data
in Global fields also disappears, so you will have to re-enter this.)

Next define a new Relationship that matches this g_Open field with the
appropriate field in the Projects Table (ProjectStatus ?).
eg.
rel_OpenProjects
match records in PopUpTable with records in ProjectsTable
when g_Open = ProjectsTable::ProjectStatus

Then define a Value List that obtains its values from the appropriate
field in the Project Table (ProjectName ?) via this Relationship.
eg.
vl_OpenProjectNames
values from field, only related, rel_OpenProjects::ProjectName

Lastly format the Pop-up Menu field to use this Value List.


The problem here of course is that such a implementation won't allow
you to Find records for a Closed project since the Closed project names
won't be listed in the Pop-up Menu. There are a couple of ways around
it, but probably the easiest to use a separate Layout where the Pop-up
Menu field still uses the Value List that displays ALL the project
names.


It's strange that so many people call them "drop down" menus and lists?
Maybe it's a Windows difference or a translation difference from
non-English versions, but according to my Mac versions of FileMaker
they are technically called "Pop-up Menus" and "Pop-up Lists".


Helpful Harry
Hopefully helping harassed humans happily handle handiwork hardships ;o)

Re: Best practice: Sorting Drop Down menu"s Contents (FM 8.5)

> It's strange that so many people call them "drop down" menus and lists?
> Maybe it's a Windows difference or a translation difference from
> non-English versions, but according to my Mac versions of FileMaker
> they are technically called "Pop-up Menus" and "Pop-up Lists".

There are several "Control Styles" i FileMaker:
The ordinary Edit Box.
Then you have the four well-known:
Drop-down List
Pop-up Menu
Checkbox Set
Radio Button Set
And finally the Drop-down Calendar, which is new i version 7 or 8.

Since the question involves "Best practice", it would be relevant to
discuss the pros and cons of Drop-down List vs. Pop-up Menu. "Pop"
seems easier at first, but it has the drawback that you cannot use
type-ahead ind such a field, so you need to use the mouse. So often,
it is required to use "Drop", which also gives the option to use "Auto-
complete using value list" - the experienced user can the avoid
popping and dropping altogether.

Jens Rasmussen

Re: Best practice: Sorting Drop Down menu"s Contents (FM 8.5)

In article
,
"Jens Rasmussen, Fimano, Denmark" wrote:

> > It's strange that so many people call them "drop down" menus and lists?
> > Maybe it's a Windows difference or a translation difference from
> > non-English versions, but according to my Mac versions of FileMaker
> > they are technically called "Pop-up Menus" and "Pop-up Lists".
>
> There are several "Control Styles" i FileMaker:
> The ordinary Edit Box.
> Then you have the four well-known:
> Drop-down List
> Pop-up Menu
> Checkbox Set
> Radio Button Set
> And finally the Drop-down Calendar, which is new i version 7 or 8.

That was the point, in my versions of FileMaker they are always named
"Pop-up Lists" or "Pop-up Menus". THere is no "drop down" anything.
Maybe it's another silly change FileMaker made in newer versions for no
real reason. :o(

Helpful Harry
Hopefully helping harassed humans happily handle handiwork hardships ;o)