Radio group control type

The Radio group control type allows you to select an option from several that you have set yourself, by clicking on a particular radio box. The radio boxes are mutually exclusive, so selecting one will turn off any other that is already selected. In this way you are able to determine the contents of a field, from a restricted number of choices, in one easy click of your mouse.

Once you have selected the Radio group option, you should select Use Choices in the Control Source box of the Group page. You can then enter your group choices in the Choices box (one per line). Each of these will be displayed to the right of its own radio group box in your document.

Example

You want to insert a database field into a form so that you can choose which entry, from a group of entries, will appear for each record in a particular field.

  1. When in Design mode, select Database Field from the Insert menu.

  2. In the "Insert Field Wizard", select a field from the database table in the Data field box. This is the field that will contain whatever you choose from the radio group choices.

  3. On the next page select Radio group.

  4. Finally, select Use Choices and type in the names that are to form the radio group in the Choices box, making sure that each choice occurs on its own line.

  5. Select Finish and use the mouse to adjust the size of the field box before returning to Browse mode.

As you browse through the records in your form, you can click on one of the radio group choices to insert it into the field you selected from the underlying table. Obviously you can insert different values for different records. If there is already a value in the field for a particular record, it will be replaced by any radio group value you decide to choose.

Note that if you intend to insert a radio group database field later on, it is a good idea to design a table with this in mind. More often than not the field should be set as a character field, in order to make sure that your radio group choices are of compatible data type.

See:

Control types