Maximum characters in a value list???

[Uncle Pauly]

I am trying to set up (pardon me if I am not getting terminology correct) several different values in a pop-up list. I can define the value lists just fine by typing in all the text I need (over 255) for each value. Then when I attempt to view the field in "browse" and I click on it and chose a specific value, only 255 (approx.) characters of that value will be displayed. The remaining text for that value does not pop up. I can continue typing it in, but that defeats my purpose of having it pretyped and just choosing the paragraph I want displayed in the field.

Sorry if this is unclear. Let me know and I will attempt to expalin better if need be. Thank you so much for the help though!!!

I am very new to this software. Learning more every day!

[JW]

Limitations :

Date field - up to 255 characters per field

Date range - up to 255 characters

Lenght of field Name - 60 characters

Number field - up to 255 characters per field

Number of field repetitions - up to 1000 for each field

Text field - number of characters limited only by memory (up to 64000 characters

So far I don't know the limitations of the value lists. When I find more info, I let you know.

[Uncle Pauly]

Thank you! Please let me know if you find out or if you know some way around it.

[Lee J]

What about using a repeating field to define your popup list?

[LiveOak]

Whoa! You don't need a value list to contain large text strings to achieve this effect. How about a value list with SMALL text strings:

Clipping_1

Clipping_2

Baseball_Story

.

.

.

that drives a lookup from another file to bring in the heavy duty text?

-bd

[Uncle Pauly]

Thanks guys. I might give that a try!!!!

[Vaughan]

... and don't use repeating fields for ANYTHING!

[signal]

Value list limitations

(Filemaker indexing of a key)

first 20 letters of each word, 60 characters per line

put spaces " " between words used in multi key calculations to increase indexing length.

[LiveOak]

I don't know of any way to have the text in a value list wrap. Value lists are not intended to store different business letters and such! If you need to select large blocks of text, either give them names (letter 1, letter 2, etc.) and put then in another file. Using value lists for long strings of text is not good design practice, the objective should be accomplished some other way.

This is kind of a "how do I drive in a wood screw with a hammer" question! -bd

[ivyorg]

Okay, so say your value list items are NOT over 255, but you would like the ability to have the lines wrap rather than extend off the layout. How can you manipulate the text inside of a value list to be able to do that?

Bevin

[ivyorg]

See, I disagree here. What I do is have compliance administrators at each school in my conference fill out waiver requests for different situations, and submit them over the web instead of via paper (fax, mail, etc). Using checkboxes for their applicable request reasons, I am able to accomplish this. These reasons are generally one long sentence. On the HTML end of things, it's easy to manipulate the text.

However, in the spirit of having a hard copy of everything readily available, I'm supposed to have a nicely-formatted and printable version of the waiver through FMP. Do I manipulate the layout, moving text boxes ahead of the value list? This seems a cumbersome way. Could you expand upon your solution in the previous post?

Bevin

[signal]

We've obviously strayed far from Uncle Paulies question but I have found the ValueListItems (dbname, valuelist) function to be quite helpful in similar situations. Especially in relational value lists.

[LiveOak]

You may disagree, but find a database product that allows you to do this. One of the definitions of "good design practice" is method that can be implemented with the tools of the trade. If an architect designs a building that contractors of accepted ability can't build, you have to question design practice. -bd