Dynamic Drop Down Menu from an Access Database

Question

Hello Everyone,
I am user Adobe Designer 7 to create a fillable PDF, and I would like to get the options for a drop down menu from my MS Access database. Basically I would like to populate the drop down menu with the names in the Access database. There i Have a table called PhoneNumbers and it contains the names of all the people I want to appear in the drop down menu that I just created.
This is what I did:
I created a drop down menu and then I clicked on Object > Binding > under "Default Binding (Open, Save, Submit)" choose "New Data Connection"
then connect to the database using a fileDSN. I opened the table where with the "names" column (PhoneNumbers)
and under the "Query," option, I wrote:
select * from PhoneNumbers
Then it gave me all the fields from the table and I dragged the "Last name" field over the drop down menu. I will need to find a way to get the "First Name" field to join the Last Name field to create one name that looks like this: Hill, Angie
The problem is that even though it shows the name from the Access database, it does not give me a list of all the names when I open the form in Reader 7...
No matter how much I click that drop down arrow, the name does not change...
It's almost as if it gets to the databse and gets the data from the database, but it cannot loop through it...
It's almost as if it's missing the code to loop through it...
Why is this? Any ideas how to fix it so it gives me a list of ALL the names, when I click on the drop down button?
After that, how can I add the first name to it?
The form would look like this:
Angie H. 202 641 2055
Right now it does look like that, but I cannot change to another name when I click the drop down menu. For the code to be working when I change to another name, the phone number also changes to the phone number of that person:
Barry S. 703 555 1258
The name is in a drop down menu, the phone number is in a textbox.
Can you help me with this?

Answer 1

ANGELA,<br /><br />Well, the good new is that you are not far off...What you need is to insert the following code using Java Script under the Initialize function.  Just replace the Connection name,  The Hidden Value, and the Display Text with your information.  This is a function is 8.0 but will work with 7.0<br /><br />/*     This dropdown list object will populate two columns with data from a data connection.<br /><br />     sDataConnectionName - name of the data connection to get the data from.  Note the data connection will appear in the Data View.<br />     sColHiddenValue      - this is the hidden value column of the dropdown.  Specify the table column name used for populating.<br />     sColDisplayText          - this is the display text column of the dropdown.  Specify the table column name used for populating.<br /><br />     These variables must be assigned for this script to run correctly.  Replace <value> with the correct value.<br />*/     <br /><br />var sDataConnectionName = "DataConnection";     //     example - var sDataConnectionName = "MyDataConnection";<br />var sColHiddenValue = "CAT_Corp_SeqNo";               //     example - var sColHiddenValue = "MyIndexValue";<br />var sColDisplayText = "CAT_Corporate";               //     example - var sColDisplayText = "MyDescription"<br /><br />//     Search for sourceSet node which matchs the DataConnection name<br />var nIndex = 0;<br />while(xfa.sourceSet.nodes.item(nIndex).name != sDataConnectionName)<br />     {<br />          nIndex++;<br />     }<br /><br />var oDB = xfa.sourceSet.nodes.item(nIndex);<br />oDB.open();<br />oDB.first();<br /><br />//     Search node with the class name "command"<br />var nDBIndex = 0;<br />while(oDB.nodes.item(nDBIndex).className != "command")<br />     {<br />          nDBIndex++;<br />     }<br /><br />//     Backup the original settings before assigning BOF and EOF to stay<br />var sBOFBackup = oDB.nodes.item(nDBIndex).query.recordSet.getAttribute("bofAction");<br />var sEOFBackup = oDB.nodes.item(nDBIndex).query.recordSet.getAttribute("eofAction");<br /><br />oDB.nodes.item(nDBIndex).query.recordSet.setAttribute("stayBOF", "bofAction");<br />oDB.nodes.item(nDBIndex).query.recordSet.setAttribute("stayEOF", "eofAction");<br /><br />//     Clear the list<br />this.clearItems();<br /><br />//     Search for the record node with the matching Data Connection name<br />nIndex = 0;<br />while(xfa.record.nodes.item(nIndex).name != sDataConnectionName)<br />     {<br />          nIndex++;<br />     }<br />var oRecord = xfa.record.nodes.item(nIndex);<br /><br />//     Find the value node<br />var oValueNode = null;<br />var oTextNode = null;<br />for(var nColIndex = 0; nColIndex < oRecord.nodes.length; nColIndex++)<br />     {<br />          if(oRecord.nodes.item(nColIndex).name == sColHiddenValue)<br />          {<br />               oValueNode = oRecord.nodes.item(nColIndex);<br />          }<br />          else if(oRecord.nodes.item(nColIndex).name == sColDisplayText)<br />     {<br />          oTextNode = oRecord.nodes.item(nColIndex);<br />     }<br />}<br /><br />while(!oDB.isEOF())<br />{<br />      this.addItem(oTextNode.value, oValueNode.value);<br />       oDB.next();<br />}<br /><br />//     Restore the original settings<br />oDB.nodes.item(nDBIndex).query.recordSet.setAttribute(sBOFBackup, "bofAction");<br />oDB.nodes.item(nDBIndex).query.recordSet.setAttribute(sEOFBackup, "eofAction");<br /><br />//     Close connection<br />oDB.close();