An 'Alias' is a word or phrase that represents a list of multiple choice items. A 'MultiChoice *List* is series of multiple choices that has been assigned to a single word or phrase (the 'Alias').

Think the 50 United States, or all the countries of the world,
or a product line, or the attorneys in your office or the counties served by your practice.

The possibilities of what an Alias can represent is endless.

   While only an Alias appears in your document, it is as if you embedded the entire MultiChoice *List* in the body of your document.

   Before moving on to the details, let's start with a 'bad example' of presenting a long listing of multiple choice variables within your document.

   The 'Bad' Example:

   The following is a perfectly 'legal' but rather inefficient (not to mention confusing) way to create a multiple choice list which contains many elements (in the below example, 50 elements).

 

   As you can see, long multiple-choice lists within a document can get very distracting. It is simply too daunting for most end users to visually process.

   A 'Good' Example:

   The following is how the above could look:

 

   Much 'cleaner,' no?

   Pathagoras lets you store a long list of variable choices (long being anything you consider as long) as a single word or short phrase which we call an 'Alias'. This 'alias' is placed in the source document in lieu of the long list. To tell Pathagoras that you are referencing a MultiChoice *List*, need only surround the alias by asterisks.

   Here is an example of an Alias as a variable: “[*listname*]”.

   Here is the same Alias as simplified Options text: "{*listname*}".

  The list of the 50 United States actually ships with the Demo and Retail versions of Pathagoras. The 'alias' is called  "States.” It can be referenced in the source document simply with “[*States*]” or "{*States*}".  Very simple. Very elegant.

 

Aliases ‘in action’:

   When the alias is encountered during an Instant Database scan or during the processing of 'Options' text blocks, Pathagoras reads the multi-choices from the MultiChoice *List* table. The entire *List* of choices is presented to the end user for selection.

(1) With Instant Database, the choices are displayed in a drop down list on the Instant Database screen.

(2) With Options blocks (regular or simplified), the choices are shown in a selectable screen which displays during the actual document assembly process.

   You can see the above [*states*] list in action by typing (or copying) the following sentence onto a blank document:

   Then run InstantDatabase or GotForms? against the variables. (Reminder: to run IDB, press <Alt-D>. If the list does not automatically appear, press the Scan button when the IDB screen displays. To test using GotForms?, press <Alt-S>. Press the <Start Scan> button.)

 

  A plea for assistance: Help to improve the world! Make a difference in the lives of others. Send me any 'universally usable' lists that you have created to:

lists@pathagoras.com.

   I will post it on the website where it can be downloaded and used by others.

   Conversely, you can download lists that I have already posted to the website that others have sent to me. Visit:

www.pathagoras.com/support/multichoicelists.html.

  Your MultiChoice *Lists* are stored in a file called "multichoice.txt". They are initially stored in the same folder that contains your Instant Database masks. Click here to learn more about locating, sharing and re-locating the Multichoice *Lists* file.

Click the button in the menu bar to read more about MultiChoice Lists.

See Also:

 Simple Multiple Choices

 Cascading Options

 Cascading Variables