Multifunction fields on a layout?

[bdonelson]

I hope this is right place for such a wierd question.

I have a layout with a text field using a pop-menu with a value list. What I want to do is run a script after the pop-menu, similar to using the field as a button.

Right now, the only way I know to do this is to have the button separate from the field.

Does anyone know of a way to combine them?

Thanks,

Bill

[Søren Dyhr]

It's an iffy sort of interface you desire, if there isn't a rollback system behind, in case a user regrets choosing at all. This means more to mac users than the avarage windows user, who from time to time have been exposed to unstandardized interfaces.

Apple have made a guide , to make the developers close ranks, and let the users have uniform metaphors to deal with regardless the software tool at hand.

This made Fenton and me tinker with this little template (originally in .fm5) - simply because it's a FAQ, but we wanted a posibility to regret, instead of being stucked with the least harmful choice....

Read the thread and implement the improvements Bob Weaver suggests. That being said, is it not a userinterface I use at all. I use strained and sorted or Cartesian product Portals with buttons in each portalrow instead of popup for such tasks!

Anyway enjoy....!

--sd

IDXPastfp7.zip

Edited August 17, 2006 by Guest

[comment]

You keep saying this is a non-standard i/f element.

But Apple Human Interface Guidelines say otherwise: Link

[Søren Dyhr]

I do, but you have shown that it can't be tossed in a random position and that it carries familiarity with a tabbed layout, which must be the correct answer to the wish - as well as the limitations in the scope of actions posible ...thanks for pointing out.

So the advice must be, if you are realestate savy, turn to tabbed layouts. Since the desired virtues doesn't allow you to do whatever script you wish but only to changes in the layout, not non-regrettable actions!

--sd

[comment]

Let me put it this way: the mere request for a tool should not be automatically interpreted as a desire to abuse it. After all, it's perfectly possible to create a hideous interface even WITHOUT event scripting.

Bill, I sugest you read this thread.

[Søren Dyhr]

After all, it's perfectly possible to create a hideous interface even WITHOUT event scripting.

It was the point I would have the questioner to deduct during the course of the thread, since a lot of these FAQ stems attempts of turning filemaker out of it's realm into something else, or rather the bumps in learningcurve - which is so cheatingly or cunningly flat, newbes never misses an oppertunity to raise the "severe ommission" flag on.

I've just been reading this:

http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=6284

..and starts to wonder what the dogs name is when questions are raised such as this or repeating fields for that matter. I'm wondering if I should change strategy and wind my messages into a more anecdotic style (... I can already hear people gasping for fresh air!).

Roy Peter Clark (from Poynter) is pointing out that educated populace doesn't stem from jounalism produced by reporters fearing the telegraph lines might be cut during transmission. So they started to cut news in a certain way upside down - the conclusions and points were conveyed to the questioner first as cutting style of a story followed with more in depth.

Should we as participators in debates like this attempt to convey a guided deduction and questioning the approach inside the users head, or cut things journalistic??

There always will be people with answers and quick fixes, you can throw into your solution unconciously without wrapping your head around it at all. But RAD tools sits somewhere in between doing everything ground up and calling in a professional to do delegate the entire task of getting the job done.

Similar is there a blurred threshold between what you can get away with in a hurry and the propperly structured and methodically normalized solution, where every bell and whisstle have been scrutinized to find the right spot to pour it into if at all, with the applience of large quantities of HESSITATION and restraint.

Should we let the geek inside us, get carried away and cram out a quick fix to every problem we get thrown in front of us or should we guide the user into some sort of enlightment??? I would say that oftentimes is the problems encountered, due to a pourly structured way of solving problems, and often by trial and error. This isn't frontier land ...scientific theory does actually exist on databases as such.

--sd

[comment]

I think it's a matter of balance (as always). Ultimately, you cannot control what posters will do in their solutions. Trying to improve their solutions by denying them the knowledge they seek is not a good way, IMHO. A better way might be telling them how, while adding a warning against misuse.

Let me also point out that Bill did not say WHY he wants this. So your statement regarding "iffy intefface" might have been premature.

[Søren Dyhr]

might have been premature.

Yes, perhaps what Robert Kagan calls, sounding like an old woman or a venusian???

--sd

[comment]

Let's not go there.