Text format style control?

[Bob476]

I have a multi-user database and would like to force-format styles for some fields, like title case for names. Is there any way to do this at the server level? I tried formatting the case in layouts, but that only works for the display in that particular layout, the main data is unaffected. In effect, that's made the situation worse since everyone *thinks* they are entering data correctly when it all ends up lower case.

Any better solutions?

[cjaeger]

realtitle=UPPERCASE(title_entry)

see discussions on (phone) number format 1234451234 --> (123) 445 1234.

[Lee Smith]

You can format the field in layout mode to show Title Case

Go layout mode - select the field to be formatted - Go to Menu - Format - Text. In the box, select the lower right hand menu UPPERCASE, it's a pull down menu that you can select Tittle Case from.

HTH

Lee

[LaRetta]

Hi Bob,

My experience is that you can't train Users and I don't believe you can force them to enter uppercase. I'd let them enter however they want and just change all of your displays for those certain fields, as indicated by Lee above.

OR ... if you just need uppercase in a few places, use Christian's calc field on a form or report instead. You could loop script through all your records to reset all the data using the Uppercase and Set Field; however, Users would continue to mess up and you'd have to repeat it

LaRetta

[cjaeger]

>My experience is that you can't train Users and I don't believe you can force them to enter uppercase.

There is no need to train them, and i dislike forcing field validation on the users where it is not necessary. Just let them enter miXeD, diplay uppercase, export uppercase calculation. It's hard to get back from Uppercase to mixed, so keep that info somewhere.

Das gilt ganz besonders f

[Bob476]

Layout mode changes are not the answer. Need to force the actual data (see above).

[Bob476]

OK, so if we let users type anything (especially crucial with some of the data being entered by web surfers), how do we correct when we use the data in export or in calculations? Not sure I got all that, but thanks for all the replies!

[paulage77]

copy/paste stays the same no matter how you define it in layout mode. At least in my Mac experience with FM.

So, if you're users are copying and pasting stuff, just have redundant calc fields that are exactly the other fields just some formatting applied to 'em. Or Tag em up for Quark or HTML or whatever it is you are trying to achieve.

[Bob476]

Thanks. The redundant field is an option I've looked at, but I don't seem to have any Title case function in calculation options in FP5.

[Fitch]

It's called Proper (text).