Wish to create a different view with fields in a different order

[Carol Moncrief]

Is it possible to view a form of approx. 2500 records in a different order. I’d like a later field to appear before the last name and to be able to sort on that field. Thanks!

[Brendan]

Hi Carol,

A form has only one ordering of fields. Although you can create a customized layout on the Mac version which will let you position fields wherever you want them to be. It doesn’t affect the records list view though.

Thanks,

Brendan

[Carol Moncrief]

I created a customized layout on my Mac. That works fine.

I’m trying to prioritize by a date field. I just realize that since many of the records were created by others who maintained this info before me, the date field was not consistently created in text fields (1 Dec 1975, or 12-1-75). I’m finding that I need to create a new field that is formatted for a date.

Do you have any suggestions how to automate the existing files in such a way that I will not have to make changes manually? Thanks!

[Dean Catiis]

I would like to see this feature as well especially with saved searches.

I have a “People” form (what Bento called “library”). Under that form, I’ve saved some searches (views, collections) based on certain criteria. When I view those saved searches, it would be great to have a view of the list of records that is different from just one view for the entire People form. This includes putting the fields in different order for different views for different saved searches.

Otherwise, the saved searches would not be super useful. I understand that the saved searches main purpose might be to simply narrow down the displayed records based on the criteria. But saved searches would be even more helpful if you can sort that saved search’s results based on certain fields and have those fields be towards the beginning of the view as opposed to having to scroll through over a hundred fields.

Thanks,
Dean

[Brendan]

Hi Dean,

The reason it’s like this right now is because the Saved Searches derive their sorting information from the Form itself, not from the search criteria. But that may change in a future version, you never know.

Thanks!

Brendan

[Brendan]

Carol,

It’s always best to use a Date field instead of a Text field for entering in dates. Then you don’t have to worry about the date format. Tap Forms handles that for you.

Thanks,

Brendan

[Dean Catiis]

Hi Brendan,

Thanks for the quick reply. It’s awesome that you, as the developer, are very engaged in these forums.

Yes, it would be great if this can be for future version. For now, it will take some getting used to not being able to see a simple list, sorted a certain way and the fields ordered in a certain depending on the purpose of the saved search.

By the way, any way that saved searches can narrow down the records by OR instead of just AND? field#1 = x OR field#2 = y. Otherwise, I’d have to create two different saved searches, which is not ideal, especially if i’m trying to sort the resulting records by field#3 and I need to see them all in one view as opposed to two different saved searches.

Thanks,
Dean

[Brendan]

Hi Dean,

You can currently do an OR search as long as you’re targeting a single Text or Note field.

So you would do something like:

Movie Title contains Hunger OR Terminator

The OR must be in uppercase.

OR between fields is not supported at the moment but it’s something I may add to a future upgrade.

Thanks,

Brendan

[Carol Moncrief]

Hi Brendan,

Yes, I’m aware of the value of the use of a date formatted field vs. a text field for storing dates. I inherited over 5K records created by others who I don’t believe were aware of this. So I was hoping for a way to electronically make the corrections. Although it took a while, I manually corrected the 400 records affected. Thanks!

[Brendan]

Hi Carol,

What you could do also is export those records with the Export Record IDs option turned on on the Export Records screen, then re-import them into the same form, but this time change the field type to a Date field. Make sure you set the Date Format setting to match exactly the format of the date that you changed your date values to. As long as Tap Forms is able to match the format of your date values with the Date Format specified, it should convert that text into real date values.

I would highly recommend making a full backup of your database using the Backup command first before you do this just in case something doesn’t work out. You can always restore and then try again.

Thanks,

Brendan

[Carol Moncrief]

I did as you suggested by exporting the records with the IDs. But when I converted the field to a date format the values changed in the conversion. So it was easier to just make the changes within the TapForms database. That way I didn’t have to concern myself with the format of the date field in question, because those who entered the dates prior to me acquiring the records, were not consistent in their data entry (1/5/94 or 1-Jan-94, etc.)

Which created another problem: Now that we’re in the 21st century, anything with a 2-digit year was converted to this century, when the date was really for the last century (1-5-94 coverts to 1-Jan-2094 instead of 1-Jan-1994).

So I found no other choice than to do it manually. Thanks!

[Brendan]

Hi Carol,

Oh I see. Very sorry about all the extra work you had to do for that, but I’m glad you’re using proper Date fields now.

Thanks!

Brendan

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