- p 235. “DISPLAY DATA FROM”
In the FIELD CONTROL SETUP dialog box, there is an option on the RHS called DISPLAY DATA FROM. What is it?
It is an INCREDIBLY POWERFUL FEATURE, with which you can make one field display the CONTENTS OF ANOTHER FIELD.
- Say your DB has three similar fields: Email, Mail, and Phone, each of which indicates whether or not you have permission to contact a customer using that method. You add the EMAIL field to the layout and format it with a POP UP CONTROL and a VALUE LIST of YES/NO.
You then apply ALL THE FORMATTING to the field and the text. Now YOU HAVE TO DO THE SAME TO THE MAIL AND PHONE FIELDS. You can do this by:
Copy the EMAIL FIELD and paste it twice, once for the mail and once for the phone.
Then you use the FIELD/CONTROL SETUP dialog box to tell the duplicated EMAIL FIELD to DISPLAY DATA FROM MAIL instead.
Do the same for telephone.
YOU’VE JUST BORROWED THE FORMATTING FROM ONE FIELD TO DISPLAY THE INFORMATION FROM ANOTHER, and thus AVOIDED DOING WORK THAT YOU’VE ALREADY DONE.
- p 236. What’s FIELD BEHAVIOR?
FORMAT–>
FIELD BEHAVIOR.
Gives you FIVE options:
a. Can you click into the field?
b. What happens when you do?
c. How do you type into the field?
d. Should FileMaker use Spellcheck on the field?
e. What do the SPECIAL KEYS do when in the field?
- What are the SPECIAL KEYS?
Tab
Return
Enter
- Sometimes you want to SHOW a FIELD VALUE on a particular layout, but don’t want anyone CHANGING IT. So you:
FORMAT–>
FIELD BEHAVIOR–>
Then TURN OFF the “IN BROWSE MODE” checkbox.
Leave the IN FIND MODE option checked so the field can be used for searching.
- You can use the SELECT ENTIRE CONTENTS OF FIELD ON ENTRY on what STYLE of field?
EDIT BOX or DROP DOWN LIST.
This is ideal when EDITING the field usually means replacing the existing value, but not for field such as the NOTES field, where only small tweaks are usually needed.
- What is GO TO NEXT FIELD USING?
FORMAT–>
FIELD BEHAVIOR: GO TO NEXT OBJECT USING.
It lets you choose TAB, RETURN, or ENTER to move to the next object on your layout.
