Hi There Supabeast,
I had a similar problem a few weeks ago.
My understanding is that you want to enter the FIRST letter (or the FIRST COUPLE of letters) of a name and then search.
Setting the filter on the combobox to %s% will retrieve rows where the particular letter (or couple of letters) appears ANYWHERE in the name and not just at the start. Unfortunately, setting the filter to s% (rather than %s%) doesn't seem to be an option.
If this is, indeed, the case, the easiest way of achieving what you want is simply to enter the first letter (or first couple of letters) of the name and then manually add %.
If you don't want to have to manually add the %, then i believe you'll need to change the action of the button from 'Search' to 'SQL Query' and in your WHERE clause use where fieldname like '{edit1}%';
You might also want to perform an 'incremental search' so that the names filter as soon as you start typing. Some people like the effect, some don't. If you do, add the button to the 'incremental search' in the properties of the search field.
Hope this helps a bit and good luck.
Derek.