FMLayoutMode.com

Okay, so this is the end of the series on Field Control Styles.

Here’s a quick summary of what you need to know when you are deciding what style to use:

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Before FileMaker 8, if you wanted to enter a date into a date field, there were two options:

1. You had to enter the numbers and slashes manually.
2. You had to pay a developer a few hours to create a pop-up window that had a calendar you could flip through to select dates.

When FileMaker 8 came out, it had a new field control style: The drop-down calendar.

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Here is the second screenshot that Daniel Wood submitted for my request for your cool layouts.

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So last week I had said I would love to post some screenshots of your proudest layouts. Daniel Wood (of FileMaker Weetbicks fame) took me at my word, and sent three screenshots right away. We’ll look at one of them today.

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When I post a technique on here, my main goal is to keep things as simple as possible — while demonstrating the technique as concisely as possible. Okay, I’m not always so concise.

As a result, I have shown you a pile of bare bones white layouts with not much on them.

But hey, this blog is supposed to promote cool layout work.

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I’ll start out by quoting Wikipedia:

A radio button [...] is a type of graphical user interface element that allows the user to choose only one of a predefined set of options. They were named after the physical buttons used on older car radios to select preset stations – when one of the buttons was pressed, other buttons would pop out, leaving the pressed button the only button in the “pushed in” position.

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My fellow colour-challenged developers, I have found a fantastic tool!

Check out this Web site: Color Palette Generator
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Okay, so we’ve worked our way through the first three field control styles: Edit boxes, Drop-down lists, and Pop-up menus. They all have particular strengths that sometimes make them the ideal entry method. Our next control style is the checkbox.

Let’s take a look at a checkbox field, and figure out when it should be used.

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In my last post, I discussed how drop-down lists can give your users some flexibility while entering data. But what if you don’t want them to have flexibility?

Fear not, fascists! We can suck the democracy right out of that field control style.

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In my  last post, we talked about leaving a field in its default control style: the Edit box. Why do we ever need anything more than that?

Well, if you’re always going to be entering one of a selection of values in that field, then it’s a shame to have to type them every time. When you make your users do something like that, you are really inviting them to make a lot of typos. That can throw off your finds and your reports.

So let’s help our users out, shall we?

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