Switchboard?

[Abbey Krystowiak]

Someone told me in order to make a front end search on an access
database, I would need these switchboard macros, how do I do this? Is
it possible to do something like this with Access 2000, or do I need a
more recent edition? HELP!

[Larry Linson]

"Abbey Krystowiak" wrote

Someone told me in order to make
a front end search on an access
database, I would need these
switchboard macros, how do I do
this? Is it possible to do something
like this with Access 2000, or do I
need a more recent edition? HELP!

Perhaps "someone" should have been more specific.

I need you to clarify what, exactly, you mean by "a front end search". I
need you to clarify what you mean by "these switchboard macros".

I have been doing quite a number of different kinds of searches in Access
databases since version 1.0, and have certainly never used any "switchboard
macro" (in fact, the only macros that I ever use nowadays are "autoexec" and
"autokeys", and those very rarely). So, I would say that "someone" gave you
misleading information or that you misunderstood.

If you can clarify so that _we_ understand what you need, perhaps someone
can offer a worthwhile suggestion.

Larry Linson
Microsoft Access MVP

[Abbey Krystowiak]

What I am doing is trying to make a database of all these research
studies that are done and sitting there. So I have fields like study
name, date, person initiated, study done by, keywords, etc. I then need
this database to be able to be searched so that people can type
something in and find a study with research they need. Make any sense?
However the people conducting the queries will probably have little to
no knowledge of Access. I am not really sure where this person got the
Switchboard macros stuff from but I had it written down. Any help you
could offer would be great. Thanks.

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[D. Sabol]

Sounds to me like what they MEANT for you to do was have a form with a
button for each type of search the user would want to perform (ie: a
button for subject type, a button for keyword, etc.) And clicking a
button would open a form tied to a query for each type of search?

I would probably make a single form with option buttons instead, and an
unbound text field. Have the user put their search string in the text
field, select an option button to specify their search, and a "Search"
button to make it all happen. Then you could set some options in VB to
open the report (docmd.openreport) based on the option button they
selected (I think you'd use the "where" part of the "openreport"
function to speicify how the report would filter).

If I did this myself, I'd end up putting some research into this
process, I just described. Sorry I can't COMPLETELY elaborate, but
that's how I would do it. Seems like a "point" in the right direction,
anyway.
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[Abbey Krystowiak]

Sorry, I am not as smooth with Access as I thought. How do create a
single form with buttons?
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[D. Sabol]

Option buttons are the circles that you click on, which puts a dot
inside the circle. This method, which is just the way that I would go
about it, would require some VBA programming. If you're not altogether
comfortable with that, you could do what was suggested to you before.
One command button for each type of query (one query for subject, one
query for keyword, etc.)

Before you try that, I believe you said you were on Access 2000. If so,
this will be helpful for you to download/use/etc:
<http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/de...y/en-us/bapp20
00/html/mdbdownload.asp>
(make sure you get everything between the <> marks, that's the whole
address.)
That is the link to Microsoft's downloadable version of the Developer
Solutions database (Solutions09.mdb). There are instructions in that
database on how to do this. It's under "Using queries with forms and
reports" and then under "Use a custom function in a subform's SELECT
statement" (change the dates to sometime in 1996 to see data). This is
a good tool, I use it myself from time to time.

You could also look here: <http://intranet.mathtechinc.com/doc/bldapps/

and scroll down to "Filtering and Sorting Data in Forms and Reports" in
the window on the left side. This site says it's for Access 97, but it
mostly applies to A2K as well.

Use your help file, the internet, newsgroups, etc. Here's a few of my
favorite sites (I've been doing this for a few years now but still
sometimes consider myself somewhat of a "newbie", so I hope these help
you like they've helped me)

A good place to search for the answer to a question. See if someone has
asked the same question you're having, sort of like DevelopersDex
(questions you post here, will also appear in DevelopersDex):
<http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=e....databases.ms-
access>

Wonderful VBA reference:
<http://www.netcoders.dk/docs/vbscript/vbstoc.htm>

A great site with great samples:
<http://www.mvps.org/access/>

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