Improving the Combo Box. DrillDown button needed

Jaymer

I'd like to know how others have solved this issue.
Examine the following 3 screen shots of a simple form.
On a New or Edit form, you can see the reference combo for Facility & Contact.
ISSUE --> How to implement a drill down (or pop-up, really) to the master table to see more info.
Sure, I can control the Combo to make a custom layout to show more data when picking a selection, but after leaving the field the custom layout drops away and you're left with whatever fields you can reasonably show in the combo.
But what if I just need the Zip Code of the Facility, or the Contact's Login Name - uncommon fields that won't be in a dropdown list.
I need a simple way to zoom (a Magic term) on the Combo Box to execute some action - in this case, a Popup Form showing the Facility or Contact.

Here's the full-size single column form:

And what it looks like in the Designer:

Runtime View - where I'd like to improve and have a drill down capability

Jaymer

I mentioned in another thread that you CAN do this if you take time to make this a 5-column form - which complicates lots of things.
On this specific line, you'd have something like this:

You wouldn't think this takes much effort - but dealing with columns isn't straighforward.
This took 60+ seconds and still didn't look right:

I was using column widths: (in %) 32 2 32 2 32 = 100%

(cont)

Jaymer

I kinda got this to look right in the Designer - and had to change my column widths. Using the new ability in 8.3, I manually resized (by dragging) the columns and got my "Icon" (which is a button using a Icon, and NO Text on the button) to move over near the end of the field. Looks good:

Until runtime:

ANOTHER METHOD
is more for the programmer.
You can inject some Javascript and show an icon after ANY field on a form. And attach a Aware call to a click on that event. This would alleviate the HTML cells and extra columns. Its more complex in a way, but probably easier to do and replicate since you don't have to change your forms.

Jaymer

Truthfully, I've spent enough time monkeying with this.
I'm Above Average, and there's NO WAY an Average person using Aware is going to get this figured out. I'm not sure how much more it will take to solve this. If I absolutely needed to, I'd push forward and do so, but I'm not.

I'm close to Image # 3 in the top post, but not close enough.

AND THATS THE POINT of this post - the Combo box needs to be improved -- UNLESS I'm the only one who needs this functionality -- which is why I asked at the beginning to see how others solve this.

I think a simple solution is this: (you need to scroll the image)

Jaymer

bump

rbross

In addition to what Jaymer is requesting on a combo box.
If there was a new property that let you call a process to show a popup that would be great.
When entering a new record it would still show the plus icon if the option was selected but if a value was selected then you had the option to call a popup to view the detail form of the selected value. The plus icon would become the search-plus icon.

It would also be nice if this option was available on a text box control as well, not just a combo box. Let say there is a total field and you want to call a popup query that shows the detail records that make up that total. I have several areas this would be very useful. That way you don't have to add another column on the form to show an Html button.

Another condition is when the list of items is too big for a combo box if you could click an icon to open a pick list to search and select a value for the attribute that would be great.
If the icon for a text box could be right-justified inside the control like it is for date field that would be great, and let you select which icon to display.
Currently, you can select an icon for the control but it puts it in the title. If you had the option to select a location, left or right, that would be good.

If this could all be managed from the properties on the control this would solve all these issues!

Jaymer

Another use for this icon would be to offer a simple way to clear the field (ie. set to UNDEFINED).
per this thread: URGENT No way to clear a Reference Value ? Bug? Bld 2711>

this button at the end of a reference field could be enabled with an option:
(X) When Clicked, clear the Field (ie. set to Undefined)
( ) Drill Down Process (OP by Jaymer)
( ) PICK ONE Process (described by Roger)
( ) Exec_SPF Function