Defining the details of a drop down list

To define the details of a drop down list filter parameter, follow these steps:


  1. Press the Filter Parameter button in the Add group from the Panel tab.
  2. Select the type of object from the drop down list.
  3. Press the Edit Text button of the Label group in the Objects tab, enter the text for the drop down list label and press OK.
  4. Modify the font and font appearance using the Label group of the Objects tab.
  5. Press the Drop Down Contents button in the Behaviour group of the Objects tab.
  6. Define the drop down list contents (described in more detail below) and press OK.

 

You can define the contents of the drop down list using data returned from a query, or manually. Both methods are described below.

 

To define the contents of the drop down list using data returned from a query, follow these steps:

 

  1. Select the option to populate the drop down list from a query, then select the query data set you want the values to be drawn from.
  2. Select a calendar to use to derive date groupings.
  3. If you want to filter the query data set (perhaps to filter the contents based on another filter parameter), select the filter button to open the Define Filter Condition window to allow you to define the filter.
  4. Select the column you want to use to build a list of values to be displayed in the drop down list.
  5. If the column is a date field, select which time interval you want to be used to build the display values.
  6. You may wish to use a value from column other than the display column in your filter condition. To define a different column as the filter parameter value, select the use a different column check box and select the column you want to use.
  7. Finally, select whether you want the values sorted (by the display value, rather than shown in the original order), whether you want to ignore duplicate items, and whether you want to include an option for all (if all is selected any filter condition based on this filter parameter will be ignored).(NB. if you have opted to use different columns for the display and value columns, two items are only considered duplicate if both columns have the same value).

 

To define the contents of a drop down list manually, follow these steps:

  1. Select the manual option, then repeatedly enter an item and press Add to add it to the list.
  2. To change the order of values in the list, select the value, then press the green up or down arrows to move its position in the list.
  1. To delete an item from the list, select it in the list then press the Delete key.
  1. When all items are in the list, press OK.