countries listing

[yadang]

A drop-down box listing all of the world countries sure would be usefull
for entering demographic information at the point of entry for visitors to
a large museum.

The staff who'll use this DB can't all be relied upon to enter the correct
spelling for each country. Therefore, it would be good to disable their
ability to enter anything on the form via the keyboard, and limit them to
just pointing and clicking a drop-down list.

However, it seems like there is a limit to the numbers of countries an
access 2007 DB designer can put into a drop down list (a limit of 255 to
be exact!). Without removing up to 1/3rd of the countries on the list and
adding some generic descriptors like "europe-other", "africa-other" and
"asia-other", how might all countries on the list be presented to the
end-user of the database as options to choose from when entering in
visitor statistics?

Regards


yadang

 

[Douglas J. Steele]

There's no such limit that I'm aware of.

What's causing you to think there is?

 

[yadang]

When I create a combo box and fill it will the 500 or so countries I have,
access then truncates the list so that the listings only go as far as
Norway.

 

[Gina Whipp]

Yadang,

What is the Row Source of your combo box? (Note, I have tblCityStateZip
which is considerably longer, even when I filter by State.)

--
Gina Whipp

"I feel I have been denied critical, need to know, information!" - Tremors
II

http://www.regina-whipp.com/index_files/TipList.htm

 

[yadang]

Hi Gina

If I understand your question correctly... my row source is "Afghanistan,
Islamic Republic of";"Åland Islands";"Albania, Republic of";"Algeria etc...

Other values include
Row source type: Value list
Bound Column: 1
Limit to list: No
Allow value edits: Yes
Show only row source values: No
Enabled: Yes
Locked: No
Auto Expand: Yes

 

[Gina Whipp]

yadang,


Your problem is you are using a Value List as the Row Source Type. You need
to create a Table and base your Combo Box on a table. The option of Value
List does have a character limit, though I have never typed that many Values
in it to know what it is... you just found it.

--
Gina Whipp

"I feel I have been denied critical, need to know, information!" - Tremors
II

http://www.regina-whipp.com/index_files/TipList.htm

Hi Gina

If I understand your question correctly... my row source is "Afghanistan,
Islamic Republic of";"Åland Islands";"Albania, Republic of";"Algeria etc...

Other values include
Row source type: Value list
Bound Column: 1
Limit to list: No
Allow value edits: Yes
Show only row source values: No
Enabled: Yes
Locked: No
Auto Expand: Yes

 

[Linq Adams via AccessMonster.com]

There may, in fact, either be a limit to the number of items in a Value List
or the number of characters in a Value List, although I've been unable to
verify this, even through Microsoft's Knowledge Base. But no experienced
developer is apt to have come up against this limit because no experienced
developer ever use a Value List with this many items as the RowSource for a
combobox!

With this many items the only sensible approach is to have a table for the
country names, and base your combobox on the table. This also makes it simple
to update the items as new countries are added or country names change, both
of which we've seen recently.

 

[Mark Andrews]

I think the limit is approx 2024 chars.
I hit it once building value lists via code

Yes on table,
Mark

 

[yadang]

Thanks everyone who replied to my OP,

I will try to make that table now.

xie xie lao shi!

 

[Linq Adams via AccessMonster.com]

That really is the only way to go.with this kind of thing. By using a table,
you can set it up so that the users can change the data displayed in the
combobox, when necessary, by simply adding/editing the table through a simple
form, without you or another programmer having to go into the form's design
and make changes.

 

[John W. Vinson]

Thanks everyone who replied to my OP,

I will try to make that table now.

Save yourself some effort:

http://unstats.un.org/unsd/methods/m49/m49alpha.htm