Dropdown v Lookup

[John Fligg]

I am trying to see if using Dropdowns may be better than lookups in some cases.

I have some concerns:

1. What exactly is the difference betweena  dropdown and a lookup?
2. When I use a drop down the first value in the table is shown then entered into the record. It should be empty letting the user select a value if required?
3. Are there issues with drop downs with Android?
4. Smartkey does not work. So if I type S I go to the first record with S but SH goes to record S then record H and not SH.

I can see that a lookup makes it easier to select on a touchscreen but the lookup select is pretty cumbersome for long lists.

Thanks

John

[kevin plummer]

Drop downs are great if you have a limited number of records to display. Lookups are page loaded so are more suited to when there are lots of records to choose from.

There are some nice options in drop down where you can add your own records to the list before or after the file loaded records. In your case --Select From List-- would be the desc and the value blank.

In Version 6.18 Bruce added Auto complete. I have not used but sounds like it might solve some of your probs. There are a lot of options on the template.

[John Fligg]

Should that not be the other way round? Drop downs show a lot of records in one go. Lookups are a pain for large data sets because you only get to see about 5 or 6 records at a time and cannot scroll through them.

Just a thought.

John

[Bruce]

you can use whichever you prefer.

Lookups work better on large data sets because less information is sent to the browser, and the user can use a locator & auto-complete to find the record they're looking for.

Drop-downs execute faster, but at the cost of sending the whole result set to the browser at the moment when the page is created.

Kevin: >> In Version 6.18 Bruce added Auto complete.
You should try it - it's seriously addictive.

cheers
Bruce