Combo Boxes

R

Ridnaway

I have several tables listing work materials. I separated them into
categories with individual combo boxes because they wouldn't all fit into a
single combo box. If I have more than one table and/or combo box for
materials can I bring the values from both tables/combo boxes into one combo
box on my form? If so, how?
 
S

Sharkbyte

A few questions, please:

1. database structure - Why do you have the same data (work materials) is
several tables? What is the deciding data that separates them into their
tables?

2. forms/combo boxes - Can you explain how all the data wouldn't fit in a
single combo box? Is this across, or length of list? If it is across,
please give an example of what your perfect string would display.

3. forms/combo boxes - Once you grab the data, from all the combo boxes,
put it together, there is probably not a reason to put it into another combo
box. Simply put it into a text field.

I think, with a little more information, someone should be able to help you.

Sharkbyte
 
R

Ridnaway

I'm not sure if my 1st response got through or not so I'll try again...

When I typed in the values I wanted in my list box I came up against a limit
where I couldn't enter any more vaslues. So, I divided the materials into
categories, i.e; Roadway, Roadside, Pavement,Signs, Stormwater, Miscellaneous
to shorten them.

Eventually I want to choose a (Material) from a combo box on the form and
have the cost of that item automatically populate another field (Unit Cost)
from the same table so the person entering the data doesn't have to look up
the unit cost for each material item. This is all for a Work Orders tracking
form I'm trying to develop to reside on a server and be available to
employees from their desktop.

Thanks for your help.
 
J

John Vinson

I have several tables listing work materials. I separated them into
categories with individual combo boxes because they wouldn't all fit into a
single combo box. If I have more than one table and/or combo box for
materials can I bring the values from both tables/combo boxes into one combo
box on my form? If so, how?
Click to expand...

What doesn't "fit"? A combo box is limited to 10 columns and 65536
rows! Why do you need multiple tables for materials? How are these
tables structured and how are they related?

You may need to restructure your tables, or perhaps use a UNION query.
But until I have a clearer idea of what's in these tables it's hard to
guess!

John W. Vinson[MVP]
 
L

Larry Linson

When I typed in the values I wanted
in my list box I came up against a limit
where I couldn't enter any more vaslues.
So, I divided the materials into
categories, i.e; Roadway, Roadside,
Pavement,Signs, Stormwater,
Miscellaneous to shorten them.
Click to expand...

Ah, apparently you are using a Value List for your items, and that is
essentially text information, with a limit on the total number of
characters. If you'll put that information into a table and use it as the
Row Source, you can likely eliminate the categories, because the limit is
only on number of Rows, not number of characters in all the names..

On the other hand, you could have a related Categories table and use
multiple Combo/List Boxes -- it would take a little code to Requery when the
Category box was updated, but isn't "rocket science".

Still, storing the information to be selected in a lookup table is, I
suspect, the answer to your problem, whether or not you use categories.

Larry Linson
Microsoft Access MVP
 
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