Conditional Pick List ?

[carlos arrieta]

Any way to create a “conditional value list” ?

This is what I need :
Pick list with 3 categories
1. Genre (Comedy/Action/Horror)
If I select Comedy then a second pick list populates the choices :
1.1 Comedy titles (1,2,3,4)
If Action is selected, then the second pick list will display not comedy but action movies

Thanks

[Brendan]

Hi Carlos,

I’m sorry but I haven’t built a conditional pick list function.

[Sydney Sauber]

Hi Brendan,
I would like to use a feature similar to the one Carlos described. Can you and other users share other methods they use to work around not having this feature at times when it would be useful to? I am thinking especially about parsing variables into categories and subcategories. For example: 1) category is “Tech” Tech_Admin, Tech_Meta, Tech_MgtFile, Tech_MgtProj 2) Category is “Pers” (personal) Pers_Admin, Pers_Meta, Pers_Writing, Pers_Ideas. Right now in order to achieve the “Conditional Pick List” benefits, I need to do it in one of 2 ways: 1) Make each Pick List the supra category and the values “Supra_Sub” 2) Use 2 different fields, one for “Supra_”, one for “Sub” and if I want to see both in one field, then concatenate “Supra_Sub”. Any other ways to do this, an method that is less complicated than having hundreds of values with the same supra category prefix in a single long list?

[Brendan]

Hi Sydney,

Ya there isn’t really a good way of doing this other than the way you’ve done it.

Sorry about that.

[Sydney Sauber]

Thank you for your response. Would you mind sharing the conditions in which you implement each of those methods and perhaps the naming conventions you use? I know it matters what characters and the case if one wants to use formulas and/or export to another spreadsheet or database application. I just don’t know all the rules for the different apps. For example some use “<>” others use “_” or “#”. What are the “safest” characters to use for this kind of thing if I want to export to Excel? Will the same characters work in an xml app like Tinderbox?

[Brendan]

Hi Sydney,

I’m very sorry but I don’t really understand your question. What conditions and methods are you referring to? Was this a question on a different topic perhaps? I’m not sure I see how it’s relevant to conditional pick lists.

Thanks,

Brendan

[Sydney Sauber]

Hi Brendan,
I see why my question was not clear. Here’s what I meant (minus the part about “safe characters”). In my post I mentioned 2 ways that I use as a work-around for the fact that TF does not have “conditional pick lists.” I asked it there are more way I have not thought of. You said nope, those are the only 2 you can think of. I am asking you what kinds of forms you use approach #1 and which kinds of forms do you use way #2?

[PREVIOUS POST EXCERPT: order to achieve the “Conditional Pick List” benefits, I need to do it in one of 2 ways: 1) Make each Pick List the supra category and the values “Supra_Sub” 2) Use 2 different fields, one for “Supra_”, one for “Sub” and if I want to see both in one field, then concatenate “Supra_Sub”. ]

[Brendan]

Hi Sydney,

Well it’s completely up to you how to set it up. You can have one Pick List with all possible values and another couple that split them up. It’s totally up to you. Tap Forms will handle each way in the same way.

I’m very sorry I’m not being very helpful with this.

[Author]

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