On Jul 1, 2007, at 11:32 PM, Robert Sandkam wrote:
But, from an end user's point of view, there is a disconnect
between where you click to set the IP address, and where the data
actually appears.
Is there any way to have the field in question continue to show the
data from the second field, rather than reverting back to the first
field data?
Stacked fields or a pull-down menu are the options du jour. The value
in the field is actually the key value and so that's the value FMP
shows to you and the value being edited when you click into the
field. Because you can not (easily) edit the value in a field
formatted as a pull-down menu FMP will display only the second value
from the value list for such fields.
Alternatively, how do others deal with this from a layout design
standpoint?
The pull-down control is quite dated looking (ugly in my humble
opinion) and so I don't use it. In fact, I don't use this particular
value list method at all for a couple of reasons.
1) Value lists are poor discriminators for more than a few dozen of
values. For most of my pick lists I use a layout and portal or list
view as the picker.
2) If you choose to show or sort on the second value, the value list
will only show unique lines for the second value. When used to enter
the primary key (as is often the case) you have essentially a
situation where there is a one-to-one correspondence between two
unique fields in a table (if both fields aren't unique then your
value list might not be behaving as you expect it to). Given this you
may as well make the second field the primary key (a so-called
"natural key") or allow the foreign surrogate key to be looked up
from the second value.
I tried some tricks with stacked fields, transparent backgrounds,
and opposite text justification for each field; but the problem is
that when the record is active in browse mode, all the fields have
white backgrounds, regardless of what they are set to be for
printing and viewing purposes.
This is because your field's fill style is set to be transparent.
When the record is open for editing the color of the layout will
serve as the fill color for the fields.
Corn Walker
Hatfield, MA
