Is there a workaround for "too many fields defined"

[M G Henry]

I have a tabbed form that contains 12 different "pages" and when I try
and run the form I get the error message too many fields defined ---
which I believe is the 255 field limit in the record source.

I was wondering, that if I were to break the pages down to include
subforms... is the number of fields contained in the subforms added to
the field limit for the main form ???

Is there some other way to work around this error message ???

I am putting the pages of forms on a tabbed control to keep the form
syncronized during the add and edit phases.

[David W. Fenton]

"Rick Brandt" <ri*********@ho tmail.comwrote in
news:ZS******** ***********@new ssvr14.news.pro digy.net:

Taking all of your properly designed and normalized tables and
combining them into one giant query is NOT the proper way to go
about things. You need to use a combination of forms, some with
subforms, and some that are opened separately as popups to show
related data.

Or use the OnChange event of the Tab control to change the
recordsource of the main form so that the controls on the particular
tab can be populated from the subset of all the fields needed for
it.

--
David W. Fenton http://www.dfenton.com/
usenet at dfenton dot com http://www.dfenton.com/DFA/

[M G Henry]

Allen Browne wrote:

You can have up to 255 fields in a table or query, and up to 700-odd
controls on a form. A subform counts as one control on the main form, and
can have its own controls and RecordSource (so fields.)

However, a well designed table rarely has more than 50 fields. If you have
hundreds, there's a very high chance that you are designing something that
looks like a spreadsheet, i.e. it is not relational.

The structure that I am using has the individual pages based upon
tables that have sometimes as few as 10 to 15 fields, but no more than
60 or so fields...

The problem I am running into is that the record source for the tabbed
control has to have me declare the field names for all the tables
linked to all the pages, so my total number of fields exceeds 255 ( not
by much ). I have used some subforms in my design and so I now will
break down the more complicated forms into more subforms to get my
total number of fields on the record source below the 255 limit.

I can only imagine that the layering of the subforms inside of the
forms, would create performance issues, however, this application will
be used by a small number of users and I hope will not end up with
severe performance issues.

I do appreciate your input and will investigate the links you have
given me as a further resource of information.

[M G Henry]

Allen Browne wrote:

You can have up to 255 fields in a table or query, and up to 700-odd
controls on a form. A subform counts as one control on the main form, and
can have its own controls and RecordSource (so fields.)

However, a well designed table rarely has more than 50 fields. If you have
hundreds, there's a very high chance that you are designing something that
looks like a spreadsheet, i.e. it is not relational.

The structure that I am using has the individual pages based upon
tables that have sometimes as few as 10 to 15 fields, but no more than
60 or so fields...

The problem I am running into is that the record source for the tabbed
control has to have me declare the field names for all the tables
linked to all the pages, so my total number of fields exceeds 255 ( not
by much ). I have used some subforms in my design and so I now will
break down the more complicated forms into more subforms to get my
total number of fields on the record source below the 255 limit.

I can only imagine that the layering of the subforms inside of the
forms, would create performance issues, however, this application will
be used by a small number of users and I hope will not end up with
severe performance issues.

I do appreciate your input and will investigate the links you have
given me as a further resource of information.