Disable text formating in Browse?

[David Kelly]

I would like to be able to disable the user's ability to change font/size/format on data entry in Browse mode. I wish my selection of font/size/format made in Layout to stick. FileMaker seems to be proud of the feature of storing text formating in the entry data.

Does not appear to be any simple "plain text" field property. Then again its likely I simply don't know where to look or how to specify a search to find it here.

What has happened is some data was copy/pasted from email, and undesired text format properties from Mail.app stuck to the data.

In this situation, I'm also the idiot user who copy/pasted from email. I need to be protected from myself. -)

[BobWeaver]

Set the field's options to autoenter formula, and uncheck the "Do not replace existing" box. Set the formula to:

SerialIncrement ( MyField ; "" )

Where MyField is the name of the field itself. This will strip out any formatting that the user may enter as soon as the user exits the field.

[LaRetta]

It can be a pain to do this on every field you wish to protect. You can remove the options (through privileges) for all font formatting (and copy/paste) and then provide back just what you wish. You can specify the field name and font sizes (and colors) allowed and give Users a window in which to copy/paste. Your data will remain perfectly clean and you can add font styles easily while in Browse mode.

Check this Topic Style Assistant by MoonShadow

This is exactly the process I use. Management loves the control - Users love the ease - and it is self-sustaining once in place. I think it could be improved with vs. 8 but I haven't needed to ...

LaRetta

[Vaughan]

SerialIncrement ( MyField ; "" )

Creative use of the SerialIncrement function, Bob!

Why not Evaluate( Quote ( myfield ) )

or for FMP 8 users

TextFormatRemove( myfield )

[David Kelly]

Thats what I happened upon earlier this morning trying different search strings in Google. This link suggesting Evaluate(Quote(fieldname)).

http://www.macintouch.com/readerreports/filemaker8/topic3394.html

In an attempt to make things more idiot-proof that I could always paste the same formula I tried replacing the field name with Get(ActiveFieldContents) and Get(ActiveFieldName) for the global replace. Neither worked. So I didn't try Get() in the Auto-Enter calculation.

Ironically I have the FM8 upgrade sitting here unopened. Appears it adds this missing function. But now I have Evaluate(Quote()) set on Auto-Enter for all the important fields. And have done global replaces with same on all the fields I previously messed up trying to clean up with a global TextSize(TextFont(TextStyleRemove())).

Guess its time to play with FM8 and see if it can script a printer change. Thats a subject for another thread.

[BobWeaver]

Hi Vaughan,

It was a memory lapse. I couldn't remember which function would strip formatting, and I just happened to try the SeriaIIncrement() function without an increment value and it worked.