by dhaupert » Tue Dec 08, 2009 3:28 pm
Hi there,
Yours is a great question. For speed reasons, we only allow certain field types to be related to others. I was not aware honestly that the Unique field type would not be compatible with the DB Popup, but it's definitely a possibility. I can definitely check and verify that is the issue, but the main reason for writing you first is to dis-recommend using HanDBase's unique type for customers. The unique number is only unique if you're using HanDBase on the iPhone/touch and nowhere else. In other words, if you use a desktop, or share with another user, the unique number won't truly be unique! I usually only recommend using this field type for things like helping declare a winner in a sorting tie for this reason. As to what to use for a customer ID- at this point on the iPhone the best option is to write in a value yourself, or choose a primary id of some sort (phone number, last name, company name, etc).
When you decentralize the database engine and run it in multiple places, creating a unique number that is unique across multiple places means using a lot more than a simple number. There are a few postings on here about using the Link value as a unique identifier (you can use a conditional field to get it into a text format, and from there you'll see it's a huge string of text and numbers. If this is something you're interested in using, let me know and I'll try to find some of those other postings regarding this!