Preserving text attributes on a conditional value list

[Johnny777]

Hello all

Can anyone advise me on this one

I have three value lists on a table the second one is dependent on what is entered on the first and the third dependent on what is entered in the first and second

I have got all this working fine, the only problem is that the second and third drop down lists are coming out in alphabetical order instead of the order they have been entered in the table

I have tried to get round this by adding a number in front of each value but ideally I would like this to be invisible - I can make them invisible in the tables by changing the text to white, but this attribute is not retained in the drop down list or in the final entry

Does anyone know how I can retain this text attribute on the actual drop down list or is there another method I can use to order the lists correctly

Many thanks for reading

[comment]

This has nothing to do with the value list being conditional; any value list using values from a field will be sorted in ascending order.

See here for a somewhat limited workaround:

http://fmforums.com/...268#entry231268

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And no, you cannot have styled text in a drop-down.

[Johnny777]

Hello

I have tried this but cant get it to work

If I explain how I have set erverthing up maybe that will help

I am trying to do a call log. The values are held in a table called call_reasons First field is Dept, then call reason (the call reasons dependent on the department selected) third field is call result

so for the first department DG this has seven poss call reasons each with 12 possible results (84 records in total). There are 3 departments giving a total of 156 records (3 fields in the table)

I have defined a value list for departments - the other two fields (call reason and call result) are defined as drop down lists displaying the linked values from the call_reasons table

I have then added two more fields - sort_number and sort_order as per the example file

sort_order is a calculation field The calculation is set up as follows = Left(" ";Sort_number)

For the call reasons in the second field I have allocated each reason a sort number, which I thought would have solved the problem but the drop down list still sort alpahabetically

Can anyone cast any light on this?

[comment]

I have then added two more fields - sort_number and sort_order as per the example file

sort_order is a calculation field The calculation is set up as follows = Left(" ";Sort_number)

If you set the value list to use values from call result, also display values from sort_order, sort values using second field, then the value list will be sorted by sort_order (subject to the limitations stated in the other thread). Note also that sort_order values must be unique.

[Johnny777]

Hi

Thanks for all your help with this

Have tried to do this but not really sure what you mean

"If you set the value list to use values from call result" There are 3 seperate value lists, so which one are you referring to

If I set department to display departments from the call reasons table - the drop down list stops appearing - it only works when using a pre-defined list

I have given each record a unique number and this is the sort number - I have set it up so that call result displays from the table call reasons and set it also to show sort order and sort by this field but it makes no difference to anything

Am getting progessively more confused

Does anyone know why this is not working

[comment]

There are 3 seperate value lists, so which one are you referring to

I am referring to the value list that you want to sort by the sort_number field. As I already said, the other value lists and the fact that this value list is conditional, are irrelevant. We are not discussing which values are to be included - only in which order they should appear. If no values are showing, then the problem is NOT in the sort order.