sort

[bharti01]

In sorting in valuelists all the words strating with '_' and ending with '_' are sorted out first based on the character after the '_' and sorting of all words with first character as an alphabet are sorted after that.

If words are :--

_Consult_,Consult 1,Consult 2, _Hospital_, Hospital 1, Hospital 2

I wish to do the sorting to bring the result in following manner:--

_Consult_

Consult 1

Consult 2

_Hospital_

Hospital 1

Hospital 2

Whereas What I am getting is:-

_Consult_

_Hospital_

Consult 1

Consult 2

Hospital 1

Hospital 2

Plzzzzzzzz help

[CobaltSky]

Hello bharti01,

One of the limitations of FileMaker in its version up to and including 7, is that it provides limited options for sorting value lists.

If you include a second field (which will then appear in the list, though its values will not be returned when selected) you can opt to sort by that field. Otherwise the list will be returned in a sort order which iss determined by the indexing options for the field from which the list is derived. You could experiment with the indexing systems (which are language based) but as far as I know none will give you the order you are looking for.

Beyond that there are two other options. One is to use a custom list rather than a list based on values in a field. You can control the specific order of items in a custom value list. The other option is to create a selection list system using a portal rather than a drop-down list. You can achieve considerably greater control over the order in which portal rows appear.

If you want to explore this last option further, you will find a demo (in a v6 file) of such a method at:

http://www.nightwing.com.au/FileMaker/demos6.html#d8

...look for it under the heading 'Simulated Pop-Up Lists with Extended Functionality'.