hi Jeff, thanks for your help.
I guess I'm looking for a sharper back color to a form, maybe multi shades
of a color, can you help?
Sure I can help, that's why I'm here.
<g>
Options:
1. If you go to each section's properties list you will see on the Format
or All tabs an option called Back Color. Click on that line and then click the
(...) button to bring up the Windows color dialog box. From there you
can click the Define Custom Colors button and select whatever color
you would like. You can play around with different shades of colors
by using the slider bar. Play around with different colors and see what
you like.
2. For backgrounds with different pictures, go to the form's properties list
and look for the option called Picture on the Format or All tabs. Click the
(...) button where you can browse for different backgrounds for the form.
You can choose from different image formats, but be careful with GIF ones.
Those types of files can produce memory issues and even cause application
failures (I've seen this personally). I'm sure if you search the web you could
find countless possibilities for background pictures.
3. If you would like to have the form's background have a smooth gradient
between two different colors you might try this code on Peter's site:
http://www.peterssoftware.com/bcg.htm
There is an actual screen shot here:
http://www.peterssoftware.com/bcg400.jpg
I've played around with this before myself and it does look pretty cool.
4. I believe Sensei Stephen Lebans has something on his site that
allows for form color gradients here:
http://www.lebans.com/gradientfill.htm
I have not played with this myself yet, but knowing Stephen, I'm
sure it works flawlessly. Please bow in reverence on your way in. <g>
One last word of advice. I would caution about going overboard on this.
While it is very tempting to "pretty up" your application with lots of colors
and graphics this can bite you in the butt. Years ago I was working on a
client application and added lots of colors and backgrounds (usually the MS
ones) and I *thought* it looked pretty nice. I loaded the application (still
under development) onto my old laptop so I could work on it while we
were on vacation. When I started to use it on the laptop all the colors and
backgrounds looked really sick!! Since the graphics card was pretty old, the
color palette was not nearly as sharp as I was used to it. My "pretty"
application looked downright dreadful!
I realized quite quickly that there is no way to tell how my applications would
look on other systems due to different graphic configurations as well as user's
system colors preferences. I have since abandoned this technique and gone
with using the standard windows system colors for form backgrounds. If
I do add in some color, it is only a tiny splash, maybe in a form header or
something. The user has selected their systems colors because that is what
they like, so pushing *my* preferences on them is not the best thing to do.
I believe if you had a room full of Access developers (That would be sweet
wouldn't it??!!........Ok I digress...) that most would agree it is best to just
use system colors for form backgrounds. Just my two cents.
Good luck with your project,
--
Jeff Conrad
Access Junkie
Bend, Oregon
