In my database I have a couple of fields that are set as drop-down lists. The values set in these fields are the only values that need to be filled in. Meaning I don't want the user to overwrite these value's unless they are added with the edit item. NO other values should be able to be filled into the field. How can I do this?

Dutchy

Either use a pop-up list instead ( a lot easier ) or enable field validation and do a check using the ValueListItems(fileName ; valueListName) function...

i.e. set this as validation

PatternCount( ¶ & yourField & ¶ ; ¶ & ValueListItems(Get(FileName) ; "yourValueListName") & ¶)

A result greater than 0 (i.e. if your value exists in the list) will make it valid, 0 will make it invalid.

Alex,

Is there any particular reason why you are using a PatternCount to check for validation rather than a validation for 'Member of Value List' ?

Thanks, "Member of a value list" was what I was looking for!

Dutchy

I don't normally use this kind of validation so i forgot that it existed? hehehehe. Actually no, the reason being in a Backend front end split your value lists are sometimes in the front end but you can't have a standard file reference to the front end if the front end is a on a client machine - which means you can't directly access the lists... So i don't normally have that choice. But yes i forgot, thanks for that :(