The Drop Down Contents window allows you to specify the contents of a drop down list in a control panel.

To open the drop down contents window, select a control in the control panel window, select the object tab then press the drop down contents button. Alternatively you can double click on a drop down list in the control panel window (see this video for a demonstration.)

There are two ways you can populate the drop down list;

To populate the drop down list using data returned from a query, follow the steps below;

Select the option to populate the drop down list from a query, then select the query data set you want the values to be drawn from.

If you want to filter the query data set (perhaps to filter the contents based on another filter parameter), select the filter button to open the Define Filter Condition window to allow you to define the filter.

Select the column you want to use to build a list of values to be displayed in the drop down list.

If the column is a date field, select which time interval you want to be used to build the display values.

You may wish to use a value from column other than the display column in your filter condition.

To define a different column as the filter parameter value, select the use a different column check box and select the column you want to use.

Finally, select whether you want the values sorted (by the display value, rather than shown in the original order), whether you want to ignore duplicate items, and whether you want to include an option for all (if all is selected any filter condition based on this filter parameter will be ignored).

(NB. if you have opted to use different columns for the display and value columns, two items are only considered duplicate if both columns have the same value).

To populate the drop down list by entering values manually, follow the steps below;

Select the manual option, then repeatedly enter an item and press Add to add it to the list.

When all items are in the list, press OK.

To change the order of values in the list, select the value, then press the the green up or down arrows to move its position in the list.

To delete an item from the list, select it in the list then press the Delete key.

Finally, select whether you want to include an option for all (if all is selected any filter condition based on this filter parameter will be ignored).