Field completion (Excel-style)

[kennedy]

Has anyone ever implemented Excel-style field completion?

It feels like something that would require a plug-in.

[LaRetta]

Hi Brian! Ray has a great solution - Copy Forward-Copy Down on his website. I've played with it a bit ... I don't understand it, but it's really good.

http://www.nightwing.com.au/FileMaker/

[kennedy]

Yeah, I've seen that... and it is cool... but that's a little different (unless I missed something). What I am talking about is when you type in a few characters and Excel gives you a completion by finding another entry somewhere in the column that starts with those same characters... as you continue to type, it may select different completions.

You can sorta get there by building a Value List on the field and formatting the field as a popup. But popup list completion is just on the first letter.

The ideal would be if, in addition to the 4 choices we have now (popup list, popup menu, check boxes, and radio buttons), FMP would add a fifth choice: completion.

[LaRetta]

I totally agree Brian! I swear somewhere recently I saw an auto-fill. I'm at work now, I'll check my downloads at home tonight. I guess I'm trying to learn too much too fast to keep track of everything I'm accumulating If I find it, I'll let you know! Yes, FM's list is getting quite long ... do you think they're listening?

[BobWeaver]

There was a type ahead technique on the databasepros site. Go to

http://www.databasepros.com

and search the resources for "Clairvoyance"

It uses a paused script, and blinks a lot, so I don't care for it too much (It also crashed my computer once).

My favorite alternative to a huge value list is to create a multi-key calculated field with a formula like:

cNameMatch =

Left(NameField,1) & "