Data Entry Cues-1

Users will often benefit from cues about data entry. These cues can indicate whether data is required or optional, and they can provide further information about what is required or allowed.
One way of providing these cues is with tooltips. Tooltips must be created and edited with FileMaker Pro Advanced. All users of the database can see the tooltips. Tooltips can be attached to any layout object – a field, a button, a field label. A tooltip pops up as a yellow note when the user hovers their mouse over the object.

Developer Quiz Question
Are tooltips visible in runtime solutions and databases published to the web with Instant Web Publishing? (Check the answer at the end of this article)

The downsides of tooltips are:
the user has to hover (not click) the mouse in the correct area
the user has to know there is a tooltip to view
the tooltip disappears after a set period
the user can only see one tooltip at a time

An alternative to tooltips is conditionally formatting text objects. Conditional formatting was introduced in FileMaker Pro 9. It allows the developer to set conditions on the appearance of text in an object such as a field, button or text block.

In this first part, we will create a text cue for a field where data is required. We have set the field validation to a strict not empty, and we want the user to know that they have to enter data in the field.

In Layout mode, create text and format it as required. Move the text on top of the field.

Next we apply conditional formatting. Select the text object and choose the Format > Conditional... command (or right-click and select Conditional Formatting... from the contextual menu). Add a condition and specify the calculation:

not IsEmpty ( Contact Management::Last Name )

The field specified will be the field you are creating the text cue for. What we are saying here is that the formatting of this text will change when the condition is true – when the last name field is not empty.

Click OK. Set the Format for the condition you have created. Set the text colour to white. Click the More Formatting... button and set the size to 1 Point. Click OK twice to close and save the conditional formatting.

Now test it! In Browse mode, create a new record and notice that the label is visible over the field. Tab into the field and enter some data. When you tab out, the label will be gone.


You can leverage what you have done for other required fields. Copy the existing label. Modify the text. Update the conditional formatting to refer to the new field.

Click here for the video

In the second part of this article, we will look at text cues for fields where data entry is optional.

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