I'm totally new to Filemaker. Starting out with just-purchased 19 on Mac. I know very little nomenclature. Perhaps there's a name for what I'm talking about, so please name it if there is.

I've got a couple K of quotes from various sources, which I collected in another DBMS. I have a table of quote data, and a related table of source data with primary/foreign "source#" key fields.

For entering new quotes, I want a layout which has a "source#" field which has a button or area to click to open a popup list of sources from the sources table. Selecting the source from the list wil enter the source# in the field when the new record is created. It would also be nice to have an "inert" (non-data and volatile) text field into which I can enter "starts with" or "contains" text to limit the length of the source list.

How do I do that?

Let's start with the basic setup. Define a value list using values from the source# field in the Sources table, also displaying values from [some field in the Source table that you want to see when selecting a source]. You will probably want to check the 'Show values only from second field' option, too.
https://help.claris.com/en/pro-help/content/value-lists.html

On the layout of the Quotes table, format the source# field (from the Quotes table) as drop-down list or a pop-up menu) using the value list above. 
https://help.claris.com/en/pro-help/content/setting-field-control.html

If you chose to use a drop-down list, you will also want to place the 2nd field from the Sources table on the layout, so that you can see which source was selected. Make it non-enterable to prevent accidental modification.
 

Now comes the more difficult part: You can set a field formatted as a drop-down list to auto-complete using a value list. However, this does not work when the value list uses a 2nd field. The best you can do is type the first few characters and have the selection jump to the first value in the list that starts with those characters. If you want something more elaborate (such as selecting between "starts with" and "contains") you will have to construct your own selecting mechanism - for example by showing the available sources in a card window, and using a find to reduce the options. But that is not something I would recommend to someone just starting with Filemaker.

 

Edited September 9, 20214 yr by comment