Real Checklist using auto-enter formatting

[Kent Searight]

FileMaker doesn't offer a checkbox that actually holds a check...instead it puts an x in the box. FM7 & above's text formatting feature allows users to enter a real check into a field.

Personally, I find the appearance of colored checks (especially in lists) more graphically appealing than just "Yes" or "No" text values.

I hope someone finds this helpful.

RealCheck.zip

[Conartist]

Good idea!!

[mf]

Can you do a find on a field with a check mark? or was the intent for report purposes only?

[Kent Searight]

Absolutely!

1.) Enter the Wingding character itself when in Find Mode. This can be facilitated by copying the checkmark to the clipboard prior to entering Find Mode, then pasting and Performing Find.

2.) Enter "@" into the search field, then Perform Find. This returns all values with 1 character (checkmark is 1 character, "No" is 2, empty is 0)

3.) Enter "u", since the wingding character is a variation of the "u" character.

Any of the above could be done manually or scripted. There are probably more ways to find the checkmark, but these are all that come to mind for now.

[JerrySalem]

I have a similar solution that I created a while ago using the marlett font.

That is a default windows font. The letter 'a' using that font is a nice check mark and it is included on all windows computers.

My problem with it is that I can't get the marlett to work on a Mac. I tried moving/copying the font from Win computers to Macs and it never works. Anyone else out there with a verson of marlett I might use on a mac, or a font that uses the letter a for a checkmark, contact me offline.

Jerry

Edited October 14, 2005 by Guest

[Kent Searight]

Why not just switch over to Wingdings since it's ubiquitous? The Windings checkmark on a Mac is shift-option-z.

[comment]

For cross-platform compatibilty, try the "a" character in Webdings font (there is no Windings font in a default Mac OS X installation).

[Kent Searight]

Thanks, comment. I'm still running OS 9 on my Mac (w/FMP 4 ) and I assumed that Wingdings would be a standard font that installed with OS X as well.

I replaced Wingdings with Webdings in the calc and tried it out, and you're right...it works! The only problem is that it's not very aesthetically pleasing, in my opinion.

So, I researched and found what I believe to be a cross-platform compatible font in Zapf Dingbats. Here's a revised sample file using that font (key for checkmark = 3).

If a Mac OS X user out there could try it out and post the results I'd be most grateful.

RealCheckRev_Dingbats.zip

[CyborgSam]

Didn't work on my Mac, I got just a "3" as specified in the calculation. On the Mac, option-v is the checkmark, when I put this in the calc instead of "3" and lowered the font size to 14, it looked OK.

[Kent Searight]

Thanks for trying, Cyborg Sam.

So, Webdings it is if you want consistency for character searches between platforms, I guess!!!

Edited October 21, 2005 by Guest

[CyborgSam]

Or: put a platform check in the calc and change characters based on platform using the Get ( SystemPlatform ) function. Might be a good idea to do this when the file is launched and keep that in a $$variable.

[Kent Searight]

My comment was geared more towards the "find" issue discussed earlier. It would be nice to use the same character in searches, regardless of OS, in a multi-platform environment.

[flapjacks]

Kent

Thanks! I like it.

John