Customers express the need for support for Lookup of related records for create and update views, as well as editable browses.
If the number of lookup records is small (e. g. <10) then a drop down is suitable. If the number is greater, you may need to provide a select dialog with search fields.
The value displayed to the user for selecting a related record (in a drop down or a select dialog) may be a natural key (simple or compound), the value to be stored as foreign key the artificial primary key (possibly a compound key).
Identifying the related record that the user looks for may require to display more than one attribute (column),
e. g. Company name, Citiy and Country for identifying and selecting a particular subsidiary of a customer.
Lookups need distinct datasources, read-only.
Agreed!
Although - once there are read-only lookup the demand will be there for updatable lookup dialogs as well, that let you - in those cases that make sense - create a missing record in the lookup table. But that may be for phase two.