Database Reference
In-Depth Information
ues.” When you test this control, make sure you create some records first, if you don't have
any. The auto-completion is based on data in other records, so if you have no records, you'll
get no auto-complete suggestions.
Assuming you do have cities entered in other records, when you start typing in the City field,
FileMaker automatically fills in the full city name that starts with whatever you type. If it
isn't right, you can just keep typing. If it is right, press Tab, and FileMaker accepts the whole
value.
Now it's time to tackle the State field. You know the drill: Select the field and turn your at-
tention to the Inspector's Data tab. from the “Control style” pop-up menu, choose the “Drop-
down list” option. From the “Display Values from” pop-up menu, pick your States value list,
and while you're here, turn on “Include arrow to show and hide list.” That adds an arrow
icon to the field to indicate that it has a drop-down list.
Once you've made this change, you may need to make the State field a little bigger to ac-
commodate the arrow icon. You can make room by shortening the City or Zip Code field.
Figure 7-19 shows the result of these changes.
TIP
A handy list of state abbreviations can be found at www.50states.com/abbreviations.htm .
Figure 7-19. A drop-down list works a lot like a pop-up menu. Click the arrow, and you get a list of
options. But unlike a pop-up menu, you can type directly into a drop-down list. For something short
like a state abbreviation, typing is often faster than picking from a list, and the field's validation en-
sures that no bogus entries get through.
Advanced Field Controls
As you've seen throughout the last few chapters, FileMaker field controls can take on many
forms. In this section, you learn exactly how each of these works, and how you can configure
them to get just the behavior you want. Each control described here is accessible via the In-
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