Database & Repeating groups

I have a data type “TOPIC” in my database. The fields here are are just holding some lists inside their respective option sets. So for example, the field “SPORTS” is of type “SPORTS TOPICS” which is an option set with list of topics under sports. So is the field BUSINESS and the rest.

In the design tab, I have a repeating group TOPIC, which is supposed to hold the fields( Sports, Business, Entertainment, etc) in the TOPIC data type. Each of these fields are supposed to extract data from their respective OPTION SETS.

That is the challenge.


This is data type TOPIC (with it fields Education and others)


This is the option set SPORTS( with it’s options FA CUP and others)

Capture MMM
This is the main Repeating Group TOPIC( It’s supposed to get all the fields in the TOPIC DATA TYPE). I placed a text element in it so I could use it as display for the current cells name ot display but the picture below shows I do no have that option

What’s wrong here?

Thanks for providing all of the details. If I understand your question correct what you are hoping to accomplish is to have your RG display a list of the topic names like “Education, Film, Games, …, Sports”. Then likely you will display the list of sub-topics (e.g. Premier League, FA Cup, etc) underneath that.

So the problem you are facing is that in your Data Type setup your Topics are set up as “fields” and unfortunately Bubble doesn’t give us a way to easily display field names (although this is not uncommon to need within an app). There are a few ways to correct this (again if I’m understanding correctly).

  1. Restructure your Data Types. Create a “Sub Topic” Data Type that has a “Name” field and a second field that is the List of Topics". Then in your Topic you create a single field Sub Topic of type “Sub Topic” for referencing the name and list of names.

  2. Restructure your Data Types (alternative). Create an additional Option Set called “Topic Type”. In this option set create options for all of your Sub Topics “Education,…Sports”. Add this field to your “Topic” Data Type called “Sub Topic Type”.

  3. Restructure your Data Types (alternative). I don’t think this is the best way to layout your Topic/Options. Think of an alternative method that is not #1 or #2 above (or ask the community for suggestions with more clarity as to how the concept is supposed to work)

  4. Finally, you can actually get the field names out of the Bubble object. I’m not recommending this based upon my understanding of what you explained above, but I am including it for completeness: Do a Search for a Thing's List of Fields (Introspection)

Confused on your question and what “name ot display” refers to… what exactly are you trying to display in that RG?