On Dec 13, 12:17 am, mckbill <Bill.McKir...@ gmail.comwrote:
Is there a way I can direct the cursor to a specific field (variable)
in a form by typing the field name while in form view?
I have a form with many fields, and it would be nice if there were
some method, similar to FIND RECORD (e.g., CTL + F ), where a dialog
box would pop up and let me enter the field name, and then jump the
cursor to that location.
I currently do my edits by locating a record to be changed by ID using
CTL+F and then I visually scan for the field I need to change. It
would be great if there were something like CTL+"V" to take me to the
'variable' I want to edit for that record.
I know that in design view I can use the toolbar dropdown variable
list to do this, but this only seems to work in form design viewl. I
need an easier way to navigate to one field that needs a value to be
corrected in the underlying table for a specific record.
I use the SAS system for some data entry applications, and it has a
keystroke combination, ALT+V+V that does this trick, but that's in
SAS. Sure wish MS-Access had some keystroke shortcut to deliver my
cursor to the exact location I want to edit on a record.
Thanks for any ideas.
-- Bill
There are several ways to do this - one way is to customise your form
view toolbar by adding a "go to field" item. In Access 2003, this
should work:
Open any form in form view and make sure your form view toolbar is
visible.
On the menu, select View/ Toolbars/ Customise.
On the Customise dialog, go to the Commands tab.
Under Categories, select Records.
Under Commands, scroll down until you find "Go to Field".
Drag the "Go To Field" command onto your form view toolbar.
Close the Customise dialog.
Now whenever you have a form open for editing, the toolbar will
include
a dropdown list of fields on that form, just like the one you see in
form design view.
Other approaches worth considering:
Lay out your forms so it's easier to find stuff visually e.g. use
dividing lines, pages, tabs, etc.
Use "&" in your form field labels to create your own "Access key"
shortcuts.
If you know some basic coding - Place an unbound combo box on your
form
whose row source type is "field list" and whose row source is the
same
as the form's row source. Use the combo box's After Update event to
setfocus to the selected field.
Finally, getting off the topic, but if you have very many fields to
search, your data may need to be normalised. Folks who are used to
working with statistical software like SAS tend to structure their
data in a
single flat file type data structure, often with large numbers of
columns. That's not the only way to do it, and it's not really the
right
way to set up your data in a relational database like Access. I'm
making assumptions about what you're doing here though so will leave
it
at that.
