Use a form like a toolbar

[lauren quantrell]

Is there anyway to dock a toolbar into a blank form? Short of that, is
there a way to design a form so that it does what a floating toolbar
does, complete with menus that have icons and with menues with their
own sub-menus?
lq

[Rick Brandt]

lauren quantrell wrote:

Is there anyway to dock a toolbar into a blank form? Short of that, is
there a way to design a form so that it does what a floating toolbar
does, complete with menus that have icons and with menues with their
own sub-menus?
lq

You can use the Click event of (a label for example) to display a shortcut
menu and that shortcut menu will appear at the location of the mouse when
you click. This presents to the user pretty much the same as if you had a
menu or toolbar embedded in the form. The command you want to use is...

CommandBars![NameOfShortCutMenu].ShowPopup

--
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to this message. Send instead to...
RBrandt at Hunter dot com

[Albert D. Kallal]

"lauren quantrell" <la*************@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:11**********************@f14g2000cwb.googlegr oups.com...

Is there anyway to dock a toolbar into a blank form?

No, word, Excel, and you guessed it ms-access all us the MDI interface. I
suppose that MOST users to computers do find their first exposure is to
word, or excel, so, it is not like using the MDI (multiple document
interface) is to going to surprise, or confuse anyway. Further, he Apple Mac
also by default has the menu bar ALWAYS at the top. So, for a VERY long
time, MDI was considered the best UI anyway. (users NEVER have to hunt, or
be fooled by the changing location of the menu bar (think about this in
word...as EACH window does NOT have its own menu bar. Most users in fact
prefer this simply clean approach (developers on the other hand tend to
want all kinds of moving/floating menu bars)..

So, if your users have EVER used word, or Excel..then the UI you present to
them in ms-access certainly is NOT going to surprise them!!..as they likely
been using MDI for years and years.

I am a big fan of using menus bars in ms-access...and I explain "why" and
how I use them here:

http://www.members.shaw.ca/AlbertKal...erFriendly.htm

There is also a nice bunch of screen shots of ms-access menu bars in action
in the above.

So, you might just continue to use the MDI interface. This approach is easy,
and when you switch from one form to another, the menu bar will switch for
you also (assuming you design the menu, and then set the form "menu"
property in the "other" tab). So, using MDI is what the development tools
support in ms-access anyway, and it takes the least amount of code.
--
Albert D. Kallal (Access MVP)
Edmonton, Alberta Canada
pl*****************@msn.com
http://www.members.shaw.ca/AlbertKallal