List of possible words from first few letters?

[doobin]

Hi all,

First post on here, my apologies if this has been covered before, I couldn't find it.

My problem is this- I am developing a database for a scientific application, namely the recording of different species of insect when out in the field. Scientific (latin) names are used, for example, campestris . The problem is that, being latin, a lot of the names are very similar. So it would be a great help if I could write a way into the database whereby the user could type the first letters of the name, and the database would display a list of possible matches that the user could click on to get the right one. I'd also like it to be constantly updating, so if the user types a bit more of the name, the list of possible matches decreases.

Any help would be much appreciated. I'd have thought this would be a useful feature to have built in to Filemaker.

TIA

[PeterHW]

Hi Doobin,

what you wish to do is called "clairvoyance" or "Type ahead". Check out this file by John Mark Osborne for a typical example

Regards,

Peter

[doobin]

Cheers Peter- looks like the sort of thing I need. Also looks complicated! Never mind, I have all day...