For the longest time I thought field labels were something special and there was some sort of connection between the label and the field. So if you have ever created a new field and put that field on the layout with the label to the left of it. Then 10 seconds later you change your mind and decide to rename the field. Presto your label has also been renamed.
But if you changed the label in any way. For example you have a field called “FIRST_NAME” and your rename your label to “First Name” then change the field name to “FULL_NAME” your label will still read “First Name”.
For the longest time I thought that the text label had some special flag on it. But it turns out … wait for it! Its the Field that has special powers. It has a “FORCE FIELD” ( I couldn’t resist ). So here is something you can experiment with. Create a file with one field in it. Call it BLUE. Then in layout mode duplicate the text labels and organize them as an ellipse around the field. as shown below. Rename some of them and leave some of them just as they were duplicated.
Then change the name of the field to RED. And watch what happens. All the text labels that were close in PROXIMITY to the field get changed. Amazing. And I know there is a Star Wars joke in there somewhere. Change BLUE to RED and presto all the text labels that were in proximity to the field get changed. Its amazing to have learned about this and most of all to have learned about it now and that its been there all along.
I put together a short video to show how this works. I learned this at the last DigFM meeting last month.