Confusing Slider Behavior

[#1]

Hi All,

I have created a slider based on a data-independent field called SliderMonthYear.  The values of the field are "Nov - 2011", "Dec - 2011", and "Jan - 2012".  (Punctuation violates grammar for clarity).  Single Vlaue, Discrete.

There are other fields in the table called SliderDate, SliderDay, SliderMonth, etc.  There are no relationships (that I can find) between these fields and any other in the load.

My slider looks fine: has the three values in the right (load) order.  At first, the selection process works as expected.  After a couple of times selecting values, the middle value can no longer be selected: if I pick Dec - 2011, it will then jump to the other end of the slider.  If I use the arrows to select I get the same thing.  I can, however, pick Dec - 2011 using the List Box without issue.

Can anyone explain this, and hopefully tell me how to implement an independent month selector correctly?

[Oleg_Troyansky]

Blair,

I'm not sure why it's behaving this way... I suspect that it might have to do with the fact that your Months are text fields and not numeric/date values.

I'd recommend to use Date type of fields for Months. For example, if your main Date field is called MyDate, the best way to associate it with the corresponding month is this:

load

     MyDate,

     date( MonthStart(MyDate), 'MMM-YYYY') as MyMonth,

     ...

from ...

This way, you first associate the Date with the first day of the month, and then format the Month representation to your desired way (MMM-YYYY). Now you have a dual field that can be sorted properly (using Numeric Value) and it can participate in any objects where numeric/date values are expected.

cheers,

Oleg Troyansky

[#3]

That sure seemed like the right answer!  I thought it would do the trick.  But it still exhibits the same behavior.  I am going to work around it by just providing a List Box right now.  Data is growing, but picking from a list is just as easy at this point.

Thanks!