The CustomList Custom Function - Powerful List Manipulation
Every so often in the FileMaker world, strokes of pure genious occur. Sometimes, these happen to affect a lot of what you've done in the past and how you'll do things in the future. While this one custom function may not replace everything you've done or will do, it sure does offer great insight into how you could do things from now on!
I was presented with this solution by Fabrice Nordman and he was quite excited when telling me about this "new" custom function - which replaced a lot of the other custom functions for manipulating lists.
If you're newer to FileMaker development, then it may take some time, but you'll eventually find out that many of your interface related solutions deal with presented data derived from multiple key values. One of the methods for showing a range of records in a portal is to use a multi-key value on one side of the relationship. This alows the portal to show a variable selection or range of data. This custom function allows you to perform this exact type of functionality PLUS a whole lot more.
Understand this custom function and there isn't much you won't be able to do with lists of return separated values!
Comments
Awesome CF
This really is an awesome CF. Thanks for breaking it down Matt!!
video not working
Hello Matt;
the full video does not load. Only the preview is loading.. I really would like to learn more about this
as many of your videos talk about custom functions using the list method.
thanks,
-ian
Can't get this function to work...
Hello Matt,
Weird timing for asking you a question, as you must be really busy, but I thought I would give this a shot...
I am having a hard time getting the CustomList function to work for me. I always get an error from the calculation editor telling me the Num or [n] is not accepted when I don't quote it, and a return error of missing parameter from the function when I do. Here's how I tried to implement it last:
CustomList ( 1 ; Get ( FoundCount ) ; "html tag" & GetNthRecord(FactureItem::date; "[n]") & "html tag" )
Your insight would be so appreciated because I think this function would truly come in handy in the solution I am developing.
I thank you in advance and wish you much fun at Devcon!
JPL
All is well!
Got it to work... Sorry for the unnecessary communication, and thank you for your tutorials!