X-Dialog # of Fields Limit

[John Gamble]

The x-Dialog box (Record List Combo Box) appears to have a limit of 7 fields regardless of their length.

e.g
Total box width 120, 6 fields (total length 100).. OK
Total box width 120, 7 fields (total length 100)
box is greyed out.

Anyone else experience this.

John

[Selwyn Rabins]

RE: X-Dialog # of Fields Limit

the record list control uses an index key to show the data. an index key in a5 is limited to a certain number of charactes (don't remember off hand-- something like 100 or 120 characters).

[John Gamble]

RE: X-Dialog # of Fields Limit

Selwyn

Thanks for the reply. Strange thing is the total lenght of the 7 fields is only 40 characters. Adding 1 more field (8 characters) blows up. Had this happen previously and seemed to be tied to # of fields rather than total length.

John

[Marvin Johnson]

RE: X-Dialog # of Fields Limit

What's the deal with this limit of fields that can be put in the radio buttton and list box dialog boxes. The 12 months of the year don't seem like too much to me. If one carefully tests this, at a certain point adding one more line to the list will cause that line to be drop in the running dialog box. Adding any additional lines to the dialog box will cause the display of the box to become ill-behaved. In my case the box was shrinked down to the point that only part of the dialog title and the close icon were visible and put in the up left corner of my screen. I tried this with the fully spelled out months of the year and with just numbers. The problem started at the ninth line in both cases. Also doubled up on the entry per line for the months which amounted to only 6 lines. This 6 line dialog box was full visible but of course useless in any database. This pretty kills the character-limit theory.

[Steve Workings]

RE: X-Dialog # of Fields Limit

Radio button lists and several other ui_get_* commands are made for specific, short lists. If you need longer lists, then you just need to use other tools. That's why my neighbor, who can get a lot done with his 1/2 ton mini pickup sometimes borrows my 3/4 ton full size pickup -- he knows to use the right tool for the job.

- Steve

[JerryBrightbill]

RE: X-Dialog # of Fields Limit

John

The issue is not the size of the fields, but the size of the expression. If your field is names "Fname" and it returns 10 characters, the genie wil create and expression something like

left(''+Fname,10)

which is 17 characters. In older versions, the limit is listed as 102 character for an expression. This may have changed in V5, but 102 characters in the above form would allow 6 - 7 groups, which is what you are seeing.

Jerry

[Marvin Johnson]

RE: X-Dialog # of Fields Limit

Thanks for that very informative reply!! There is a thing call learning that one has to do first, no thanks to the A5v5 documentation being silent on this. All of us were not A5v5 experts when we step out of the womb.
With that said, it does look like X-dialog handles both problems a lot better.