hi again. i would like to ask if the following is possible in filemaker and how to do it.

i have a field called studies. i also have a value list of about 100 types of studies (eg. MA, PhD, BA, etc)

what i want to do is to when i click the "studies" field, i get a drop down or pop up or checkbox of the value list i have, and to be able to check one or two or more values from the list then they are listed on the field, separated by a comma. like:

studies: HS, Coll, MA, BA, BA1, PhD

Thanks.

You could create a calculation field that looks at the studies field to show commas instead of returns, which is what a checkbox or drop downs create.

Substitute( Studies ; ¶ ; ", " )

Will that do it?

thanks for the reply. that is pretty much what i want, but this will create 2 fields. one with the check box where i click and the 3rd with the calculated field which displays the clicked item on the first field.

is it possible to do this only via 1 field?

You could do it via a "fake" dialog window where you ask the user to select checkboxes in a global field and then you set the real field to the calculation I mentioned...

...then you're talking about having to create another layout and your user would have to click on the field to select the values...

that makes so much sense. now back to work. thanks

What do you need the comma delimited list for, versus the checkbox?

because there are about 100 options for the textbox. it doesn't look good to see all 100 textbox option on one layout! it's better to list them with commas or even with another charater if it will cause errors if i want to export data via csv.

what do you suggest?

Could you filter your options?

For example, would a user select studies from a category?

You could create cascading/hierarchical drop downs so that the final studies checkbox is a limited number of choices, based on a category of studies.

Also, you might want to consider having a list view of all the studies show up in a pop-up window. The user then marks (a temporary field used to select the records he or she wants, which gets cleared at the end of the script) the ones he or she wants, clicks "Continue" and the script concatenates the choices.

From the sounds of it, you should find a way to categorize the studies so that the options are limited to something less than 100.

Thoughts?

Try

Substitute ( YourCheckBoxField ; "¶" ; ", " )

note the space behind the comma

HTH

Lee

Edited May 16, 200817 yr by Guest
changed Field Name

is it possible to do this only via 1 field?

Only one field...

( just to joke : )

OneField.zip