I have a pop-up menu where the user will select a section by viewing a list of text names for these sections - this is coming from another table of sections which have associated ID's.

How can I use the ID of the selected item rather than the text that the user sees?

Thanks

Do you mind if the user sees the ID? Especially if the IDs are all the same length and relatively short, you can just make a value list of IDs with the "Also display values from..." option pointing to the text names, and sorting according to the second field (text names) for better visual scanning. When a selection is made, only the ID will show for that field (though you probably want the name showing closeby in a related field to help confirm choice).

I've seen postings from people who want to hide a numerical ID in such a value list and have done things like creating a font that reduces numbers to zero width in order to make them not show up in such value lists. Perhaps they never see the ID at all: a related field displays simply the name, and the data entry person feels as though the id (if it appears at all) was looked up from the name.

The disadvantage -- compared to a system where the name is actually selected from among text values which then prompts lookup of ID in a separate field which is the real key field -- is that users cannot type into a true ID value list to scroll it towards the desired text name. If your list is long, that might make a decisive difference.

Thanks for that info.

I used the "also display values from.." option and that works well in the application environment. However, when this is transfered to IWP only the ID's show - which isn't helpful for the user who will not know what sections those ID's relate to.

Any ideas?

Thanks

Emma