Making buttons disappear

[GC GYM]

Hi All,

I have tried both a self-join relationship and conditional formatting to make a touchscreen keypad disappear/reappear.

I want the keypad to appear when someone enters any field, and disappear when they exit the field.

I'm using Get(ActiveFieldName) as the condition (or to populate the join key for the relationship)

Data viewer shows that Get(ActiveFieldName) is either empty or contains a value as expected.

However, the condition is not triggered and the the key field is not populated.

Conditional format: (Get ( ActiveFieldName )

Key field calc: Show Keypad = If(Get ( ActiveFieldName );1;0)

I even tried putting a script trigger on the fields to refresh on entry and exit, but no change.

Any ideas?

Thanks

Phil

[Vaughan]

I'd create 2 layouts -- one with the keypad one without. The one without the keypad has buttons where the fields are that switches to the keypad layout.

[GC GYM]

I'd create 2 layouts -- one with the keypad one without. The one without the keypad has buttons where the fields are that switches to the keypad layout.

Sounds like a good idea, thanks Vaughan.

Any idea why my own attempt isn't working? I'm thinking that I'm about to learn something new about Filemaker, or just that I can be a bit of a dill sometimes? I'd prefer the former of course.

[Vaughan]

Any idea why my own attempt isn't working?

Your calculation doesn't make sense to me ,and I have no idea why you need a self-join relationship.

If the aim is to make conditionally formatted text appear when a field is active the calculation probably needs to be

not isempty( get( activefieldname ) )

But all that seems too complicated to me, too hard to build and too difficult to maintain.

It might also be easier to have the keypad appear in the scripted "modal" window, with entry into a global field.

[GC GYM]

I got the concept of using a self-join relationship from http://www.databasepros.com/FMPro?-DB=resources.fp5&-lay=cgi&-format=list.html&-FIND=+&resource_id=DBPros000743

When the relationship is true, the buttons on the first row of the 1 row portal appear. Anyway I couldn't get it to work so I'm using the conditional format method.

I thought that for a boolean result,

Get ( ActiveFieldName )

would give the same result as

not isempty( get( activefieldname ) )

Anyway yours works so I'm using it.

The problem though, is that it works on entering the field, i.e. the keypad appears, but when exiting the field and there is no active field, the conditional format doesn't change back unless I refresh the window.

I put a refresh window script trigger on entering, saving and exiting the field, but it still doesn't work when the user goes out of the field.

[Vaughan]

The problem though, is that it works on entering the field, i.e. the keypad appears, but when exiting the field and there is no active field, the conditional format doesn't change back unless I refresh the window.

Part of the reason I think doing this with conditional formatting is not a good idea. Also the conditional formatting does not really "hide" the buttons so it's possible they could be clicked on at any time.

[GC GYM]

point taken. Thanks Vaughan.