Value List w/ "ALL" Option

[Dr. Evil]

Any tecniques out there that allow an "ALL" option using a Value List from Field or something that works like this?

Goal is to have a single filter field where user can choose Project Contact and filter records (in list view) by this contact. I have a value list from field for contacts made. I can manage the scripting of this, but don't know how to go about adding an "all" option to list. I will end up with a handful of filters, such as contacts, status, type, and so on. So I would want them to read as "All Contacts", or "All Types", etc.

Attachment shows what i'm trying to accomplish, I just drew over a screenshot.

Is there a way to look at this differently, or set up so this would be user friendly?

Thanks for any help!

 

[comment]

I am not sure I understand what "filter" means in this context. You say you are in List view - so you would be looking at a found set. If you're building an interface for users to enter the search criteria, then I believe the established convention is that any field that is left empty does not affect the find.

[Dr. Evil]

Yes, sorry, I mean Found Set.

Ok, i will not worry about including an "all" option in value list.

I will also switch value list style from "pop-up menu" to "drop-down list" so user can delete data in search field and leave blank.

Thank you for your help, if you have any additional tips on building this feature into a solution, I'd appreciate it.

[MikeKD]

If you format the field as a checklist, then any, none or all of them can be selected.

Sorry, that should have been "checkbox" not checklist.

Cheers,
Mike

[Fitch]

One way I think works pretty well is to use a little "Show all" button next to the field, or it could say "Clear" or it could be a little circle with a slash icon. You get the idea.

The button runs a script that clears the drop down and commits the record.

In addition, it's nice to overlay a text label on the field. With FileMaker 14 you could use placeholder text, but for earlier versions, just use a block of text that says "Displaying all records; click to filter" or whatever, and apply conditional formatting like so:

not IsEmpty( Global::yourDropdownField )

In the conditional formatting dialog, click the More Formatting button and set the font size to 222 or some large number.

This tells FileMaker: when the dropdown field is empty, display this text normally, but if it's not empty, make it so big that the text is pushed outside its bounding box so it becomes invisible.