Paste data into Combo Box

[RantEng]

Prime 7.0 introduced Combo Boxes.  These are similar to tables but are not easily populated.  When editing a table, I can paste several rows and columns of data at one time.  In a combo box, each cell must be entered individually.  This is especially onerous for large combo boxes.

Add a feature to past data or to convert a table to a combo box.

RantEng

[albertschepers]

I agree, this is very frustrating on conversion of M15 to P7. 

I use script programs to create drop down lists from which an indices is returned from which data is extracted from a data table. It is complex but efficient means of extracting information from a large data set.

The combo box is a good idea but some of my data sets have several hundred rows with twenty variables per row (data for beam sizes for instances).

I have created a complicated excel spread sheet which can replace the functionality but it means rewriting all work sheets in which the data is used. I spent 16 hours working on the P7/excel functionality to test but am still not happy with it. If I get it to work and then implement on each sheet it will take a couple hours per sheet to make the change, after conversion.

I have a few hundred templates and a few thousand worksheets. Setting aside the older sheets, there is upwards of a thousand hours to convert M15 to P7 after it is converted by P7, assuming P7 does the conversion (there are several sheets which do not convert).

[amcgough]

Ideally, we'd like to have the combo-box edit UI similar to the matrix UI in Prime - that is, the ability to copy an arbitrary block of data and paste into the combo box (you can currently use the Rows and Columns matrix UI to add and delete rows and columns). It may even be useful to have the ability to create a comb0-box from an existing matrix.

[amcgough]

Hi there,

This feature was added to the recently release Prime 8.0.

Many thanks,

Andy.

[PG_10330554]

Hi Andy, 

is there a video tutorial on how to use this new feature? 

Thanks -Priscila

[DJNewman]

Hello Priscila,

Please check out 1:14 to the end of this video:

https://youtu.be/peysPbP2Ruw?t=74

[RantEng]

The cut-paste process is rather frustrating.  You can use it to replace existing data.  You cannot use it to add data.  

In other words, if you want to insert data in a 3x3 area in the combo box; a 3x3 data space must be present.  This isn't too difficult until the combo box gets rather large.  Then, you need to create an area with dummy data (if you leave it blank and click off the combo box, the box collapses to a size prior to the added area.  Past data in an area exactly the same size.

Bob

[Lou5]

I second Bob's comments.

Also, there appears to be data type limitations inputting data to a combo box. For example, I cannot find a way of sensibly entering a large array of dates in dd/mm/yyyy format sourced from a xlsx sheet...

A cut & paste operation for date format data appears impossible, it seems a large amount of work is needed or have i missed something?

Lou