Using Autocomplete fields

Request forms with ‘Autocomplete‘ lookups defined in them will usually have the ‘interactive’ Lookup field clearly identified with a symbol and an appropriate tooltip (see the Matter number field in the form below).

Where a field is defined as ‘Autocomplete’, as the user types characters into the field, the system interactively displays a list of records from the data source being looked up, that match the characters entered so far.

Exercise

In your RefTracker system’s client interface, select a form that contains Lookup examples. Your system will have been distributed with an example called “Lookups module example form”, so select it if it is available – we are using it for our examples in this documentation.Notice the images to the right of all the Lookups fields have tooltips that explain the special role of these fields.

When more than 10 entries match, more entries can be seen by clicking the down arrow in the summary section at the bottom.

The list becomes shorter as more matching characters are entered.

Clicking on Enter or Tab will automatically select the top (highlighted) entry in the list, but other entries can be selected by clicking on another entry in the drop down list, or by typing a unique number then using Enter or Tab. If the user enters a value that does not exist in the data source being looked up, the system will not display “No matches” in the summary section at the bottom of the drop down box.

Exercise

In an Autocomplete field, try entering various values and watch how the drop down list interactively shows you all of the selections that are still valid given the text you have entered.You can type the whole of a valid entry and hit Enter or Tab and what you typed will it will the value saved into that field.You can click on a value in the drop down list and that will be the value that is saved into that field.

You can click on the down arrow in the summary at the bottom of the drop down to see even more valid selections.

In the case of our “Lookups module example form” this Autocomplete field is also being used as the key for a Dynamic population, so as you select a value, a number of other fields will automatically have text appear in them. The next section discusses the Dynamic population function that is causing the text in those additional fields to