Conditional Value List (FMP7)

[Joe Harkins]

I'm setting up a contact db for a community organization using FMP7.

I have a field "Category" that is defined as a value list containing

Member

Officer

Resource

And I have value lists for each of those Categories.

I want to have field ("Role") next to it on the layout whose content is chosen from a drop down list. The drop down list that is displayed in the Role field should be conditional upon the the contents of the Category field.

Assuming the appropriate drop down field is displayed, the user would the choose one of those values.

My question is, what script would cause the appropriate drop down list to appear in "Role".

Should Role be an text field or a calculated text or should it be a container?

Thanks in advance for help with this.

[Søren Dyhr]

Try to investigate this:

http://www.fmforums.com/threads/download.php?Number=134828

...and feel free to ask further!!

--sd

[QuinTech]

Hi, Joe. This is a question that comes up frequently, and i'm just wondering what keywords you used when you searched for this on the forum. If we know those, then folks like Soren who have a good answer can stack their posts with those keywords, so that next time someone searches for those they'll get an answer right off the bat.

Jerry

[Joe Harkins]

First of all, my sincere thanks for a "right on the mark" response, complete with a simple asample file. I am now working on dis-assembling it and recreating it it my project. Along the way I'm getting a good insigfht into the realeted issues.

As for search, I did not find what I wanted by using "conditonal values" in the FMP 7 Values Forum. So I simply posted a new thread there.

Joe

[Lee Smith]

That's because there is a Topic Area for Value List, and if I was going to choose one to search on value lists, that would be the one. However, getting good results can be tricky, and does require thought. Start by using the Advanced search tips, located above where you type in your Keywords.

Keyword search terms (Advanced search tips) and it helps a lot.

Searching "All Forums" is better than a single Forum because, many post have been made to the General Areas, or were posted with the member thinking there problem was in one area, but once the discussion gets going, it becomes obvious that it belong in another area.

You will also get a better results if you use the FileMaker terms when when searching, even if the original poster didn't use it as part of their subject, and/or body, there is a good chance that it will appear in the responses.

BTW, how many hits did you get with the plural of value enclosing it in quotes ("Conditional Values") or was this a typo.

HTH

Lee

[maddev]

Hi, Joe. This is a question that comes up frequently, and i'm just wondering what keywords you used when you searched for this on the forum. If we know those, then folks like Soren who have a good answer can stack their posts with those keywords, so that next time someone searches for those they'll get an answer right off the bat.

Jerry

The posted sample DB is exactly what I was looking for. THANK YOU!!! I basically stumbled onto this thread but I had been searching here and at other sites using "dynamic value list" and "contextual menus". Hope this helps!

Thanks again.

[Elwood Blues]

regarding the posted sample DB "Boggle2", where are the "Dynamic::Value" values coming from? Is it a layout or something?

[Søren Dyhr]

Is it a layout or something?

Yes there is a layout called ListBuilder - Each time you creat a new record by command/ctrl N is it destined to be a main cathegory - while a new subcathegory is written in last row of the portal below in the record/cathegory it belongs to.

By rolodexing further ahead the newly created Subcategory shows up since it's a selfjoin relation - which in principle makes it endless deep! This means that if an extra sub selection is needed is it just to copy and alter the field it depends on in the valuelist definintion and attach it to a new popup field.

What is the intended use of such a system?? Popup list becomes impractical when more than 10 topics should be displayed when entering the field... so this is a mean to trim the selection into smaller chunks. But this means that the last cathegory chosen have to be a reference to another table, otherwise would it be redundant storage of data and by it a source of inconsistency.

The way to cure this potential problem is to make the last chosen cathegory in the tab order be a range to fill a portal rather than picking a single item!

But you might benefit from the reading of the thread it stems from:

http://www.fmforums.com/threads/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=134828

...but also eventhough the thread got berserk in the end - does it contian good hints to the subject:

http://www.fmforums.com/threads/showflat...true#Post141359

--sd