Scripted copying of multiple field contents to other fields

[Steven Swallow]

Although I've been pottering with Filemaker for years, I'm still influenced heavily by my historical Access knowledge, despite not having used it for about four years. I'm having trouble getting around some aspects of Filemaker, and now the time has come where I need to develop something quite substantial with it I think I'll be asking a lot of questions!

I have a pretty straightforward address screen with the usual fields (company, address, town, county and so on). I've also recreated the same fields for delivery address details (del_company, del_address, del_town and so on and so forth).

What I'd like to do is have a button clicked that copies the contents of the primary address fields (the invoice address for all intents and purposes) and pastes those details into the delivery address fields, given that the delivery address fields are where address labels will be printed from.

I've got as far as creating a button and calling it "Copy address fields", but when I've come to creating the script I have become completely lost. I tried (in the button definition screen) to choose "Insert Calculated Result", chose the first target field, then tried to put together the calculated result, but that failed dismally. Even then I'm aware if it had worked, it would only work for one field, not all fields. So, really clueless about this part of things.

Any help much appreciated!

[Steven Swallow]

Never mind...got it. It might not be the most elegant solution but I just created a script that uses the Edit>Copy/Paste commands and just did a copy/paste/copy/paste/copy/paste blah blah blah script that did the job.

Bet there's a more elegant way but it works fine.

[Lee Smith]

You should use Set Field instead of copy / paste.

[Steven Swallow]

Aaaah, thanks. Halved the number of lines in my script. I think it's just that I don't know what 90% the functions are for so I go for the most obvious if not the best solution. What I need is a good function reference...

[Lee Smith]

One of the best references is in your User Manual or the online Help that is available when FileMaker is open.

This link is the same as you will find in the online help, but sometimes it is faster and easier then the FileMaker one. FileMaker Pro Help

HTH

Lee

BTW, if you are using a newer version, substitute fmphelp_10 to fmphelp_11 or fmphelp_12 in the URL and you are there.

[Steven Swallow]

I think the user manual has long since been lost in the IT Manager's storage room of doom, but the online resource is great, thanks. Should have found that myself to be fair!

[Lee Smith]

The user manual comes as a PDF.

Applications > FileMaker Pro 11 Advanced > English Extras > Electronic Documentation > fmp11_users_guide.pdf

BTW, the Calculation functions are discussed here Function of the Day found in the Calculation Engine (Define Fields). This topic was started in March 2008, and yeah I know that it is old, but it still can be helpful because of the examples and what was added by the members.

Lee