Re: Forms, how to inform users of choices during data entry

Path: emory!wupost!uunet!news.larc.nasa.gov!teb.larc.nasa.gov!caywood From: caywood@teb.larc.nasa.gov (John Caywood) Newsgroups: comp.databases.informix Keywords: forms Message-ID: <1991Dec4.165400.1152@news.larc.nasa.gov> Date: 4 Dec 91 16:54:00 GMT References: <769@skyking.UUCP> Sender: news@news.larc.nasa.gov (USENET Network News) Organization: NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA USA In article <769@skyking.UUCP>, jc@skyking.UUCP (J.C. Webber III) writes: |> |> Scopes would be category 01, LA's would be 02, etc. How do you |> help the data entry person know what the category numbers are? |> What I'd like to do is have a 'hot key' where a user would position |> the cursor on the field for category, press the 'hot key' and the |> bottom of the screen would clear, the possibilities would appear, |> he would select one, press return and the bottom of the screen |> would return to normal. |> |> Does anyone have any idea how to accomplish this, or do you have any |> suggestions of an easier way to inform the data entry person what |> his valid entrys might be? |> -- |> J.C. Webber III jc@skyking.UUCP |> R&D Lab Manager ..!uunet!cadence!mips!skyking!jc |> Mips Computer Systems {ames,decwrl,pyramid,prls)!mips!skyking!jc |> (408)524-8260 I had a similar problem: users input an organization name which has to be mapped to a number. I didn't use the hot-key approach, but let the users enter whatever is natural for them -- the name. I created a table with all valid names and their corresponding numbers. Then, AFTER FIELD the_name_field #lookup the name in the name-to-number table declare foo cursor for select.... if status = 100 then # invalid name MESSAGE "Invalid name or some-such" next field the_name_field # don't let the user get away with putting the wrong name in else display number-you-looked-up to number-field let dbrec.numberfield = number-you-looked-up end if So suppose you don't want the name in the main table. I think you can define the input record to have one field that you won't actually insert into the DB, namely, a char field that your users type in (oscope, la, etc); you look up the right number for them and put that into the DB.