Access 2003 Intermediate

SECTION 3

Adding a Control

Forms have two basic functions. They provide a means to input data and they can perform actions on the database. Therefore, the things that you interact with on a form are either text fields where data is entered in some way, or controls that perform some action on the data in the form or on the database.

To demonstrate the functionality of forms, click the Forms object in the Database window and click the New button. When the New Form dialogue box appears, make sure Design View is highlighted in the list and then pick a table or query that will be used to build the form:

The Form will then open in Design view. Visible with the form are two smaller windows: the Toolbox and a quick representation of the Vehicles table:

The blank form is not much to look at, but you have the potential to do just about whatever you want to the data in your database with a form, with a little bit of help. The Toolbox window provides quick links to the different controls that are available.

Let’s explore the Toolbox. You are probably familiar with the functionality of many of these commands if you are used to using a graphical operating system like Microsoft Windows:

Select Objects		This arrow, when selected, lets you drag a rectangle around commands already in the form to select them.
Control Wizard		This button, when selected, will start the appropriate Wizard to guide you through setting up Option Groups, Combo Boxes, List Boxes, Command Buttons, and Subforms. It is a good idea to leave this toggled (indicated as active when it is orange in colour). We will explore this Wizard in the next section of this lesson.
Label		Drag an area on the form and type a text label.
Text Box		Like a text label; you can drag an area and type. However it is possible to make this control bound and have information automatically displayed inside.
Option Group		Click and drag a box around a group of controls to group them together. Useful when using Radio buttons; users can select one option out of the group to perform a certain action.
Toggle Button		A toggle button’s command stays in effect when clicked and will remain so until it is clicked again.
Radio Button		Used to select a certain option, and almost always in groups of two or more.
Check Box		When checked, the condition bound to the checkbox is true or active. When unchecked, the condition is false or inactive
Combo Box		You should be very familiar with the function of combo boxes by now. Use combo boxes to have the user pick an option out of a list of options by clicking the pull-down arrow.
List Box		A box that works similar to a combo box, but it can be expanded to show all of its contents. A user simply picks the option out of the list they want to use.
Command Button		Button that performs some action when clicked.
Image		Allows you to place a picture in your form.
Unbound Object Frame		Allows you to create a special window inside a frame that you can use to view some other document while looking at your form. For example, you could have a small window containing a PDF document or a PowerPoint presentation.
Bound Object Frame		Allows you to enter and control various expressions and low-level operations that can be performed on the database.
Page Break		Used to create a cut-off point when printing a document. Even though you may be able to see everything on your screen, a new page will always print off when a page break is encountered.
Tab Control		Lets you create a series of tabs in your form, each with its own options. Many software applications contain several of these already, click Tools à Options to see tab controls. Useful if you have a large numbers of controls in a frame that can be categorized.
Subform/ Subreport		Lets you create a form inside a form (or a report inside a report). Many of the forms in the sample database already contain subforms.
Line		Draw a line in the form. Useful for dividing up the form components into groups so they are easier to read.
Rectangle		Draw rectangles in the form to help provide a visual group of related components.
More Commands		Access has the ability to include many more types of controls that are either gateways to other data management programs or special controls. These other commands are beyond the scope of this manual.

To add a control to a form, simply click the type of control or other object you want to add to a form. On the form canvas, click and drag an area to insert the form into. Don’t be afraid to make controls and other form objects a bit larger than you think they need to be because you can always shrink and move them around later.

As you add commands and other objects to a form, Access automatically labels them in ascending order (CheckBox1, Command2, ComboBox3, etc). We will change the names later in this lesson.