Pick Lists

For Text and Number fields, the typical input is through basic field entry via the keyboard. However, for fields with a specific set of values, Pick Lists offer the convenience needed to quickly access frequently used values for specific fields.

Pick lists are managed on the new Pick Lists Inspector panel on the right when you have the Form properties inspector panel displayed.

The above screenshot shows the Pick Lists which are assigned to this specific form. If you click on the Document button, you’ll see a list of Pick Lists which are available in the entire document. The reason for this is there may be some Pick Lists, such as Countries or Status, or simple Yes/No lists which are useful for many different forms within your document. The Forms list shows only those Pick Lists which have been specifically assigned to that form and they will not show in the Documents list.

There are also two ways you can generate a list of values to choose from. Use values from list are the values that you manually type out or paste in, such as a list of movie genres or a list of countries and provinces. The Use values from field option, generates a list of values from another form’s field that you select. So when you update that form’s records with new values for that field, they will be available to you in this Pick List.

Here is an example of what the Checkbox Button Pick List style looks like on the record details:

There are six different styles of Pick Lists under the “Display As” column heading.

1. Single Value Popover – This is the default style where Tap Forms will display a popover view that allows you to select a single value.
2. Multi-Value Popover – A multi-value pick list will allow you to select more than one value to assign to a field.
3. Combo Box – This gives you a popup button that also has a type-ahead text field as part of it. You can type a value and Tap Forms will fill in the rest or you can click the arrow (or press the down arrow key on your keyboard) to display a list of possible values.
4. Popup Button – This gives you a popup button that contains the list of values available. You can select a single value from the popup button.
5. Checkbox Button – This provides a set of checkboxes in a grid format. The grid is determined by the “Checkbox/Radio Columns” property in text and numbers fields and is a great tool for displaying different options in different forms in the same way.
6. Radio Button – This is similar to the checkbox button option, but will instead display radio buttons.

After you’ve created your pick list, you’ll need to assign it to the appropriate text or number field. In the Form inspector panel, under the Field tab, select the field and navigate to the bottom of the inspector panel. There, you’ll see a dropdown menu to select your pick list. The same Pick List can be assigned to one or more fields.

Cascading Pick Lists

New in Tap Forms Pro is the ability to setup a hierarchy of Pick List values. For example, a Country and Province list of values. When you setup a Pick List in this manner, you would assign the same Pick List to two separate fields. The Country field and the Province field. But on the Province field, you would also set the Parent Field to be the Country field. Now when you select a country value for your Country field, the Province field’s Pick List will only show the values relevant for the selected Country. For example, if you were to pick Canada for the Country field, the Province field would then only show the province values that you assigned to the Canada country on the Pick List edit screen.

After you’ve setup your cascading Pick List, select each field in the hierarchy and select the same Pick List. But also set the Parent Field property to be the parent field in your hierarchy of fields. So Country would have no Parent Field setting, Province/State would have Country as the Parent Field, and City would have Province/State as the Parent Field setting.

Country Field:

Province Field:

City Field:

And this is what it would look like if Radio Buttons were selected as the Display Style:

The Pick List values would change depending on what values higher up in the hierarchy were chosen.

Copyright 2016, Tap Zapp Software Inc. All Rights Reserved.