popup with keyboard

HI,

I hope someone can help me.

I've developed a layout (Learning walks) which is linked to the staff table on pk. On my layout I've got a drop down for the staff member (to store the pk) and overlaying this a popup menu for the same field which will show the name of the member of staff. Found this workaround on this site.

It works fantastically as the staff members name is displayed and the PK is stored in the table.

However, on the iPad app whenever the field is clicked on, the popup menu with the list of names appears (correctly) and so does the keypad showing numbers. Again this is correct as it's a number stored in the field.

However, my users would like the number keypad replaced with a keyboard to allow them to press a letter and for the popup menu to go straight to the names beginning with that letter instead of them having to scroll all the way.

Is this possible to do and if so, how would I begin to go about it?

Thanks for any help / guidance provided.

Ann