Tabbed Input Form

W

Walt

Hi,

I'm a novice access user and I'm building a database. I'm trying to figure
out how to build a tabbed input form. I want to have a form with 4 or 5 tabs
on it and when you click on a tab the page has check boxes on it. Anyway one
assist?

Thanks
 
T

tina

add a Tab Control to the form, using the appropriate button on the Toolbox
toolbar. add additional pages to suit, using the Insert menu. click on the
Tab Page you want to add checkboxes to, and add them, again using the
Toolbox toolbar.

hth
 
L

Linq Adams via AccessMonster.com

Just to expand on Tina's answer, here's a quick little tutorial I give people
on the use of Tabbed Pages. It addresses some of the common problem
experienced with them:

First thing to remember is that the Tabbed Pages are all part of a single
form; think of it as a really long form turned on its side. Because it is all
one form, all referencing to any control on it is done in the same manner as
if they were all on one single screen. Create a form in Design View. Goto the
toolbox and click on the Tabbed Control icon; it actually looks like several
manila file folders. Place it on your form and adjust the size to your liking.
If you need more than the two tabbed pages it initially gives you, click on
the tabbed control to select it. Goto Insert and click on Tabbed Control Page
and another tabbed page will be added. Do this as many times as necessary.

This is the really important part: when you go to add a control to a tabbed
page, you must first click to select one of the pages, then add the control.
Otherwise, the control will be added to the form itself, and will show thru
on all tabbed pages!

Once you have the form's Control Source (your table or a query) set up, you
simple add controls as you normally would, heeding the above paragraph.

Also important to understand! If you go to move a control from one part of
your main form to a tabbed page, cannot drag and drop it! You must cut it,
select the tabbed page, then paste it! And if the control has any code behind
it, a GotFocus, OnClick, etc, after dropping it on the tabbed page, you'll
have to "re-connect" it to its code. Select the control, goto Properties,
click to the right of [Event Procedure] on whatever event to bring up the
ellipsis (...) then click it to go to the code window. Exit the code editor
and the control and its event code will be connected.[/font] One
last thing. When trying to access the Properties of the Tabbed Control, such
as the BackStyle, people complain that they can't find property. The problem
is that they haven't selected the Tabbed Control, they've selected one of the
pages of the Tabbed Control! The best way to be sure of selecting the Tabbed
Control itself is to click to the right of the last tab. If you have 2 tabs,
for instance, click in the blank area where Tab 3 would be, if you had a
Tab 3.
 
W

Walt

Thank you both. I have one more question. Can I have the different tabs
connect to different tables? Of does the tabs only work with the same table
or query?

Again thank you so much.

Walt
 
J

John W. Vinson

Thank you both. I have one more question. Can I have the different tabs
connect to different tables? Of does the tabs only work with the same table
or query?
Click to expand...

A Form (whether it's got a tab control on it or not) has a Table or Query as
its Recordsource; that's the only query that you can use for bound controls.

You can put a Subform on a form (on a tab page if you wish), bound to a table.
Usually this will be a table related to the mainform's table.

BUT... if you have a whole lot of checkboxes in your table, enough that you
need pages and pages of them, your table design IS WRONG. "Fields are
expensive, records are cheap" - if you have a table with 50 or so Yes/No
fields, you should almost certainly rethink your table design!! Tables are
fundamental; if you're designing your tables to fit your preconceived form,
then you're almost certain to get an incorrect table structure.

How are your tables structured? What are some typical fieldnames and meanings?
 
W

Walt

I have a POC table with name, office, phone, e-mail, etc. Then I have a
table where the POC can input the effort they are working on with impact,
update, etc. Next I have a table with initiatives and concepts for the POC
to select that correspond to their effort. My thought process is to have a
tab for POC, tab for effort, tab for each of the concepts with the initatives
that they can check. With each tab corresponding to it's related table. I'm
guessing I'm trying to do more than what access off my limited skills can
accomplish.
 
J

John W. Vinson

I have a POC table with name, office, phone, e-mail, etc. Then I have a
table where the POC can input the effort they are working on with impact,
update, etc. Next I have a table with initiatives and concepts for the POC
to select that correspond to their effort. My thought process is to have a
tab for POC, tab for effort, tab for each of the concepts with the initatives
that they can check. With each tab corresponding to it's related table. I'm
guessing I'm trying to do more than what access off my limited skills can
accomplish.
Click to expand...

We'll be glad to try to help!

Jargon question (which may not be relevant): what's POC?

Stop thinking about the Form for a moment. The form *is secondary*. Designing
your tables to fit the form, as I suggested, is a bad way to go. The Tables
should be based, not on the appearance of the form, but on the logical
relationships for the data.

What are the Entities - real-life things, persons or events - of importance
here? People, clearly, is one, so you should have a People table with fields
for PersonID, LastName, FirstName, contact information. It seems that an
"effort" is some sort of entity, as is an "initiative" and a "concept". If
each person can be involved with (say) multiple concepts, and each concept can
relate to many people, then you would NOT want a table with a checkbox for
each concept; instead you would have three tables:

People
PersonID <primary key>
LastName
FirstName
<etc>

Concepts
ConceptID <primary key>
ConceptDescription <text>
<other fields about the concept as a concept>

PeopleConcepts
PersonID <link to People>
ConceptID <link to Concepts>
<other fields concerned with THIS person's involvement with THIS concept>

Rather than multiple field for concepts, you would have multiple records in
the PeopleConcepts table.
 
W

Walt

Hi John and thanks for taking the time to assist me with this. POC is just
Point of Contact. Each effort or initiative will have a POC tied to it. Let
me start over. I have 3 documents, each with a number of concepts defined by
capabilities. POCs are completing initiatives that correspond to the
concepts and capabilities. What I'm trying to do is capture what they have
completed and pull it out of the database in a way that will grap "like"
concepts and capabilities across the 3 documents. I hope I'm not speaking
greek with trying to explain. The first thing I did was figure out how the
concepts and capabilities relate. So I have tables for each document, for
the concepts of each document, and for the capabilities of each document. I
also created link tables with how the documents relate to each other. At
least that's what I tried to do. I then created a table for the POC, POC
Initiative (what they have done), and POC Capabilities (a selected from one
of the documents). I figure by doing it this way I could tie the documents
together. When I thought I had the tables good then I created forms for the
inputs. That's when my managers decided they wanted tabbed controls versus
individual forms. Now with all that said, I'm very new to using Access 2003
and I busted my brain power to get this far and the latest curve ball is
striking me out. Sorry for the long explanation but hope it helps you
understand what I'm trying to do.

Walt
 
J

John W. Vinson

Hi John and thanks for taking the time to assist me with this. POC is just
Point of Contact. Each effort or initiative will have a POC tied to it. Let
me start over. I have 3 documents, each with a number of concepts defined by
capabilities. POCs are completing initiatives that correspond to the
concepts and capabilities. What I'm trying to do is capture what they have
completed and pull it out of the database in a way that will grap "like"
concepts and capabilities across the 3 documents. I hope I'm not speaking
greek with trying to explain. The first thing I did was figure out how the
concepts and capabilities relate. So I have tables for each document, for
the concepts of each document, and for the capabilities of each document. I
also created link tables with how the documents relate to each other. At
least that's what I tried to do. I then created a table for the POC, POC
Initiative (what they have done), and POC Capabilities (a selected from one
of the documents). I figure by doing it this way I could tie the documents
together. When I thought I had the tables good then I created forms for the
inputs. That's when my managers decided they wanted tabbed controls versus
individual forms. Now with all that said, I'm very new to using Access 2003
and I busted my brain power to get this far and the latest curve ball is
striking me out. Sorry for the long explanation but hope it helps you
understand what I'm trying to do.
Click to expand...

Well, a slightly longer explanation would help more. Please post the names,
relevant fieldnames, and relationships of your tables.
 
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