Using Tabs in Field Calculation

[kmerritt]

Is there a way to enter a tab character in a calulation field? I am using a calculation field to create a line item summary of a bunch of other fields. I would like to be able to use tabs to separate the fields. I swear I have seen other solutions do this, but I can't figure out how.

Thanks, Kevin

[Lee Smith]

Hi Kevin,

Yes, capture an accual tab from some text, and insert it in quotes. In other words if you were to copy this " " into your calculation, you would have a tab in quotes, as I put a tab in between these quotes here.

HTH

Lee

[kmerritt]

Thanks. That worked perfectly. Is there any otherway to do this through character codes or is copy and paste the only way? The following example by NightWing seems to be able to produce a nice Layout from a calculation. Any I saw a couple characters in the script that I didn't recognise. Is there a good resource that you know to help make large calculated fields look like tables?

Thanks, Kevin

[smorr]

One suggestion with FM Dev 7 is to create a custom function Tab and paste the tab character (in quotes) This way you can add tabs in you calculations such as

"Label"&tab&

Another way to do this on mass is to make another custom function (perhaps Tabulate?) that will replace all "t" with the tab character... (ie substitute(text,"t","(tabchar)")

you can use it as such

tabulate("heading 1tHeading 2tHeading 3")

or

use them together

Tabulate("heading 1tHeading 2tHeading 3

[-Queue-]

On Windows a Ctrl-Tab will put a Tab into a field. Is there an equivalent key combo for Mac?

[Lee Smith]

Hi Kevin,

I'm not sure which file of Ray's you are referring to, but FileMaker can be a mix bag with some of the Text symbols (i.e. The PILCROW A.K.A the paragraph symbol is available by just clicking on it, where as things like a tab you have to do things like you just did). You can make things easier to deal with some of these things such as tabs, equal signs and quotation marks by creating a global field to hold them, especially helpful if you need to quote quotes.

g_Tab (contains a tab)

g_Quote (contains a ")

g_Equal (contains a =)

So, a calculation that looks like this:

FieldA & " " & FieldB & " " & FieldC

would look like this instead.

FieldA & g_Tab & FieldB & g_Tab & FieldC

As to the second part of your question about good resource, I think you will find that FM Forum is one of the best resources you will find. Ugo posted a file Here that you can use to keep some of the better calculations in, and there is at least one file, "Complex Calculations" By: John Mark Osborne available at

http://www.fmfiles.com/tnt1.html

that can be a good start.

HTH

Lee

[Ender]

I learn something new every day: On a Mac, Option-Tab puts a tab in a field.

[kmerritt]

Attached is the NightWing example if you want to look at it. In the two log fields there is an character that I have never seen before.

The layout of the log field is exactly what I am looking for. I am going to try to learn from it as a template.

Thanks for all the advise. -Kevin

AuditTracker.zip

[Lee Smith]

Hi kmerritt,

Sorry, I can't help you. I don't have version 7.

Maybe someone else can step in.

Lee

[The Shadow]

kmerrit,

Do you mean

[kmerritt]

yes, the double dagger. I had never seen that before. Thanks for the heads up on the character palette.

-Kevin

[Tripod]

It's been there since at least the 80's on the Mac. One thing that was really common with option is that you could select columns of text with option drag, stuff like that. Some of this has not really survived to OS X. Traditionally, I would say that option usually confers more power in some way, or is the alternate technique for that one thing that you normally couldn't do (enter a tab since it's the key you use to go field to field).

Just my .02$