Morph Field has no memory of previous criteria

In Panorama 6, when a user made use of the Formula Fill feature, if they then chose Formula Fill a 2nd time, the previous formula was still there ready to be edited. This was handy as often the first iteration wasn’t quite right and a smal edit could easily allow for a better result.

This convenience does not exist in Morph Field. Is there a chance that when Morph Field is used that the user could see what their previous attempt was doing so that they could make a small edit for a better result?

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I second that.

I have managed to get into the habit of copying the formula to the clipboard before I press return, in case I need to undo the results and try again. A pop-up menu of previously used formulas, such as TextMate provides in its Find and Replace dialogue, would be a great boon in Morph > Fill with Formula... (and maybe a similar history pop-up in Morph > Fill with Value... too)

I’ll look into that, but I have what I think is a better idea – just make a temporary procedure for this. It’s just one line of code

formulafill ...the formula...

You can just leave the procedure window open while you fiddle with the formula. When you’re done you can just delete the procedure (or keep it if you think you might want it again later). You don’t even have to ever give it a name. Procedures aren’t a precious resource, feel free to create and destroy them freely.

Bonus: If you want to be able to undo, add one more line to your temporary procedure:

startdatabasechange "All Records","Temporary Formula"
formulafill ...the formula...

Good point. I am forever creating temporary procedures to loop through all records to do things that can’t be accomplished with a one-line formula (or, at least, not easily), so that typing:

startdatabasechange "allrecords"
noshow
firstrecord
loop
    . . .
    downrecord
until info("stopped")
showpage
endnoshow

is now well embedded in my fingers’ muscle memory! But Morph > Fill with Formula... is a handy shortcut in comparison to a procedure containing a formulafill when it’s just a one-liner.

Assuming, of course, that you are not doing this with a shared database, since Startdatabasechange only works with Stand Alone Databases. Too bad, it a fantastic statement.

‘Temporary’ procedures are very useful. Morph dialog also lets you set up and use Favorite Morphs, much as Find/Select dialog does.

One option the latter offers, but Morph doesn’t is to Repeat showing the last dialog by holding down the shift key. Which could then be edited or used as is. I’ve missed that option when my foresight failed to start with a procedure. Differing data type considerations may complicate that, but its Favorites cope with them.

I am not seeing a temporary procedure as an answer to my needs. The Morph Field dialog has many pop downs, and sub criteria that I would like to be able to re-run slightly differently. I am not dealing with a formula. A procedure to me is a different animal. And thus, I am editing the wording of the title of the thread. :slight_smile:

Save the Morph as a favorite. If you want to morph it again, you can start with that favorite.

I think what you really want is for Last Morph to show up as a Morph favorite automatically.

Oh that’s an interesting idea. Probably difficult to implement, but I like the idea. Actually that would be good for any dialog that has favorites.

In general, I would not like an automatic addition to my Favorites as most often it will be a one up. But if the Favorites merely had a Last used ‘Morph Field’ using Favorites as a parking spot, that would be better than losing the whole thing.
As it is now, not only when Morph Field is the last used not still there, but it does not default to the current field when the Start with Field option is selected.

I’m not sure what you are referring to. It defaults to the current field when I use it.

I think you may be imagining this differently than I am. I am not suggesting adding a new favorite every time you use it. I am suggesting having one extra item in the Favorites menu that would be Last Morph (or Previous Morph, something like that).

But for me, no.

Upon closer inspection, it actually is defaulting to the current field, but it does not display the field name for me.

It’s not supposed to default to the field name, it should show «Current Field». What does it show if you click on that popup menu? When you start, the menu should start with «Current Field», then a separator line, then list all of the non-binary fields in the database. But when you open the dialog it should show «Current Field». Looking at the source code there is no preference or setting for it to do anything else but show «Current Field» when the dialog opens.

It seems like there must be a display problem on your system for some reason. Or maybe it’s somehow related to the database? What happens if you create a new database?

Only after recording a movie (which allowed me to see it in slow motion) was I able to see what is happening. Thus, I am sending a movie to you separately. Yes, it is a display issue.