I have a FM7 database with a table for "Ads" -- Advertisements and a
related table "insertions" which gives me the specific dates of the
magazine issues that a particular ad appears in. The "insertion" field
is a select list based on (another related table) called "cover dates".

As far as I can tell, there is no way to have the value list that is
displayed sorted by date, descending order.

Essentially right now the user has to scroll through every date in
1999,2000,2001 etc in order to select a date for 2005 or 2006. Does
anyone know a way of making this sort so that the last dates (2006 and
2005) appear first? I have selected sort by cover dates in all the
relationships. Thanks.

chimpgrrl wrote on (10/7/2005):

In Layout Mode:

Double-click the Portal (or select the portal and use the menu
Format/Portal).

The second item you see in the Portal Setup dialog is a checkbox and
specification button for "Sort Portal Records".

Matt

I don't know if this will work, you'll have to try it.
Create another field in the insertion table which counts the days
between the insertion date and 1/1/2020. Basically the greater the
insertion date gets, the smaller this number becomes.
Now display the insertion date and this second number in the value list
but sort based on the second number. If FM is sorting like
1
10
2
3
etc.

Then you'll have to add extra zeros to the front of the field and make
it a text field eg.
Right("00000" & (Date(1,1,2020) - InsertionDate), 5)

Matt Wills wrote on (10/7/2005):

Boy, did I goof on this.

You asked about sorting the value list, I told you how to sort the portal.

Value lists based on field contents are sorted alphanumerically,
ascending, with no option or control. The only way to have things the way
you want them is to hard-code a custom list.

Matt

You could use a portal as the "value list."

Add a portal to your layout for "cover dates" and sort it descending by
date. Add a button to the portal and specify the Set Field command.
(Insertion = insertions::date). When a user clicks that button, the
corresponding date is filled in.

Bill

"chimpgrrl" <schamberlin (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote