Feature Request: Allow Pop-Up Menu to Populate from Table Data

BTY, wrong location for a "Feature Request:"

Use the Provide Numbers feedback menu item in the Numbers menu to send your Feature request directly to Apple, where it can be forwarded to the Numbers product development team.

Use the Feature Request Form found there.

Appple provides the space for these user-to-user community discussions, but Apple's participation in these communities is limited to ensuring adherence to the terms of use agreement, and monitoring (by community specialists) for questions that have not received a response within a limited time since the question was posted, and providing a response, usually a reference to a knowledge base article on the topic of the question.

Regards,

Barry

I'd use the built in editing feature. Here's an example.

To create the pop up menu cells shown:

I made the list of items shown in column B, Then selected those cells and opened the Format inspector to Cell, and chose Popup menu from the data type list. I clicked Start with 'blank' to add the 'None' entry at the top of the list.

Each of the cell now contained the same popup menu as shown in the image, and each menu was set to the value originally in that cell.

(The menu displayed is in cell C2. I copied the one of the cells in column B, pasted the copy into C2, and set it to None before taking the screen shot above. It is not part of the procedure, and is shown there only because opening any of the menus in column A would cover all cells in that column.)

Edit any one of the currently identical pop-up menu cells in column B.

I chose A4, currently set to C

In the Inspector, click + to add a new value to the bottom of the list, and enter the value in the box. ( X ).

Select all of the cells containing the previous version.

Then click Merge Menu Items.

Each of the selected cells now contains a copy of the edited menu list. Each menu has retained its previous setting.

Regards,

Barry

I edit popups a little differently.

I usually make popups by entering all the items into a column in a table, sorting them if necessary, selecting them all, then changing the format to pop up menu. They will all become popup menus. Then I copy/paste one of them to wherever it is needed. Include a blank cell in the list if you want the pop up to "start with blank", and copy/paste that one.

Method 1 for editing is similar to Barry's except I choose all the pop ups and edit them all at the same time vs changing one then merging it with the others.

Method 2 you type a new item into a cell, select that cell and all the pop ups that need that item, then change the format from "multiple" to "pop up menu". This will merge the new entry into all the pop ups and also make the new cell a pop up. If the new cell had a pop up in it originally, you have to delete it before entering your new item. This method can be quicker than method 1 if you will be adding a few new items.

Method 3 is when I am okay with the old pop ups being what they were but new pop ups need the new items and I need the items to be sorted. I go back to the column I used to create the pop up, add the new items to the bottom of the list, sort, select all of them, change the format to "automatic" then change it to pop up menu. Same as before I copy/paste it to wherever it is needed, but not overwriting any of the old pop ups with it.

The biggest headache with merging or adding new items to a pop up with a lot of items in it already is it puts all new items at the bottom of the list. If you want it sorted you have to do it yourself, unless you create a new pop up like method 3.

One other way to do it that seems to work if you need your pops up sorted and you want all pop ups to be the same:

Do Method 3 to create a new sorted pop up.

Copy the one that matches the pop up at the top of the column where your old pop ups are

Paste it into that cell

Select all the pop ups in the column and merge them.

All will get the new sorted list of items.

It appears when Numbers merges a column of pop ups it uses the pop up in the row nearest the top as the base and it appends items from the other pop ups to the bottom of it. If the top one has all the items and in sorted order, so will all the others after merging.

Again, this is mainly for pop ups with a lot of items that need to be sorted. This and "method 3" are useful if you have a table of product names and related information and you want a pop up that has all the product names in it. Whenever new products are added you merge/recreate the popup. It is not as simple as Excel's data validation that does all that automatically, but it gets the job done.