Issue 53233

When entering data in a combo box and the value does not exist, have a 
property which optionally allows it to be added to the underlying table 
without any user coding.

This issue was recently raised on the dba users list.

When a user using a Form enters a value into a combo box and the value does 
not already exist, enable the value to be automatically added to the 
underlying table. 

The usual way to handle this situation is to code around it. 

The majority of end users do not have coding skills.

It would be good if this was a property which was able to be set by the user 
using the user interface and not require any coding skills. The more users can 
do without coding the more people will be able to use Base.

I develop MS Access applications and over the years this type of feature has 
been requested a number of times.

The following are some thoughts which I thought I would add.

- The underlying table for the combo box should be a single column table. Past 
experience has shown users want to automatically enter data into the combo box 
but forget that other data is required in other fields in a multi column table.

- Thus it is envisaged from my perspective this RFE applies to automatically 
updating tables with a single column.

- There may be a requirement the limit values to the existing underlying table 
and not allow adding to the table.

- There may be a requirement to force values to upper case. Key fields are 
often in upper case.

- There may be a requirement to ignore case. An upper case or lower case value 
may be considered the same.

- There may be a requirement to prompt a user to accept a new value. This is 
to avoid the user making a typing mistake and thus filling the underlying 
table with garbage.

- When the underlying table is updated the contents of the combo box should 
also be updated to enable the user to immediately select the new value for 
subsequent records.

- The same feature could be used where the combo box data is a list of entries 
instead of bound to a table. This would enable to combo box values to increase 
within a document over time.

The needs of list boxes or multi-column combo boxes (which I suspect will 
eventually become available) also need to be considered. I suspect these 
cannot be handled easily. One option is to provide an open form option when an 
unknown value is entered. Then a form could be opened ready for the user to 
complete all the other required fields. However this is outside the scope of 
this RFE.

Regards,

Kelvin Eldridge