Auto fill fields

[Glenn Stehr]

Hello everyone.

Sorry to have to ask what is most likely another easy to solve question for all the pros out there.

I have a form that contains information on a Mother, Father and Child (in the traditional sense , not parent record or anything but actual people).
The first field filled in is the "Child's Last Name". I wish to have Alpha 5 auto fill the "Mother" and "Father's last name" to be the same, but allow me the ability to edit if it in fact it is not the same in reality. Many kids do not share common last names with both of their parents so a calculated field does not work (unless there is a way to return it to a user enterred field if necessary so I can edit it).
I have attempted to set the default value of the field to that of the "Child's Last Name", but it won't seem to work because that value is blank at the opening of the form.
A lookup will be too slow and won't necessarily contain the Last Name needed because most of the records are being enterred for the first time.

Any ideas I've overlooked?

Thanks
Glenn Stehr

[Tom Cone Jr]

RE: Auto fill fields

Glenn,

One idea would be to handle this in the form layout. You could put a small script in the OnDepart event of the child's lastname field. It could check the mode of the form and if the mode is ENTER it could assign the field value to other field objects on the form.

-- tom

[Glenn Stehr]

RE: Auto fill fields

Great approach!

Thanks Tom!

For those who may be interested in the future...
I took Tom's advise. I was so entangled in making this work in the table structure it never dawned on me how easy it is to do on the form itself.

In the 'OnDepart' of the field I wish to copy I simply
'Save Record' in the current form.
'Set Field Values' for the field I wish to copy to and use an expression to build the value. (In my case just insert the field I wish to copy)

I can now edit the field if desired or let it auto fill on depart from the earlier record.

I am a novice as you can tell so this may be of little use to others. Just thought I should contribute the way others have for me.

Thanks again Tom and all of the others who have helped me along in the last few months!