Parts of a form

[PhilOfWalton]

The "Experts" seem to be having so many problems, particularly recently, with people asking very unclear questions mainly because of mis-naming the parts and controls on a form.

Has anyone got an image with things like Navigation Bars, Record Selectors, Tab Controls, Pages, Command Buttons etc clearly labelled?

Similarly there seems to be confusion about Source Object for Subforms / SubReports, Record Source and Control Source.

Due to the limitation of Bytes, probably the image would have to be displayed elsewhere, or possibly a link to an article, but it would be a useful reference when an unintelligible question is raised.

Phil

[twinnyfo]

Hey Phil! Good idea. Interesting, though, that if you click on any object in Access design view, believe it or not, the properties window tells you exactly what it is. I know you know that. It does not have an object for true "navigation Bars" and "Record Selectors" because those are actually inherent properties of the form itself.

As useful as your suggestion is, and as helpful as it would be for all of us--especially the experts like you who are trying to read minds by interpreting what you "think" a poster might have in mind, what would be more helpful to us all would be posters who take a little time to understand their trade in the slightest bit--and if not, make an effort to do so. Who wants to go to a brain surgeon who says, "Well, I'm gonna take this 'knife-thingy' and kinda sorta make a hole in your head, and well, I'm gonna trudge around a bit and look for stuff--but I don't really know what I'm looking for."

You have a heart of gold, Phil--and you are also one of the brilliant ones.

Thanks for being thoughtful on this!

[zmbd]

There are dozens of tutorial sites that cover this... if people would look; however, it seems that it is human nature to simply jump into the task and learn nomenclature later - mea culpa :)

I'll see which of my favorite tutorial sites has the best set of images and post links :)

[PhilOfWalton]

Great.

I had a look and couldn't find anything with a picture of a form and the parts labelled.

As Twinnyfo says, the properties window tells you exactly what a control is, but it doesn't exactly stand out getting partially lost under the larger font of the "Property Sheet" and being in the same font as the rest of the properties. As a secondary title, you would have thought Microsoft would have used a slightly larger bold font.

Anyway, if you can find something that illustrates the parts of a form together with an illustrative property sheet and highlight the "Selection Type", when we get one of these incomprehensible questions, we could refer the OP to whatever website you find and ask them to rephrase their question using the correct terms.

Phil

[NeoPa]

PhilOfWalton:
we could refer the OP to whatever website you find and ask them to rephrase their question using the correct terms.

As long as it's neither commercial nor a forum site of course.

This is a reminder to us all, of course, to use the correct terminology in our responses too. One of the most often misused is the Tab Control, which contains Tabs^H^H^H^HPages of course. On which one may, or may not, have Subform/Subreport(s). I would suggest using either is perfectly acceptable in most cases. Not all Subform/Subreport controls are found on Pages. The Subform/Subreport controls contain a Form or a Report. Such object is not, in itself, a Subform/Subreport.

[zmbd]

Ok,
I've started a new insight thread
https://bytes.com/topic/access/insig...re#post3817599
This will be a work in progress so your feed back will be appreciated.
To keep the Insight clean - maybe the feedback can go in this thread... I'll cross post a link here into the first post.
-Z

[twinnyfo]

Z,

Well Done. Just for your informational FYI, Bytes automagically resizes your images, whether they are inline or not. So, even downloading the images produces the same reduced clarity.

However, I think because of how you have things sized, they are readable for this kind of article.

Looking forward to more....

[PhilOfWalton]

Excellent start zmbd, and your images on ijared's posting will be a good addition.

I have asked that the be improved, or even that the image could be orientated to landscape rather than portrait might well help, but I don't really know who is in overall command of Bytes.

Phil

[NeoPa]

PhilOfWalton:
I have asked that the be improved, ...

???

PhilOfWalton:
..., or even that the image could be orientated to landscape rather than portrait might well help, ...

Surely the orientation of an image is entirely independent of any site settings. It's controlled by the image file itself. Is this not true? Is there something going on I'm entirely unaware of?

PhilOfWalton:
..., but I don't really know who is in overall command of Bytes.

The owner is account #1 (Niheel). I administer generally, but without all the tools necessary to do much more than any of the other moderators.

I do know Niheel is working on an updated interface. No idea when that may hit us though.

[PhilOfWalton]

@Neopa

..., or even that the image could be orientated to landscape rather than portrait might well help, ...

I am only going by what it says on the manage attachments page.

It's just that most images posted tend to be landscape, as generally are computer monitors (unless they are processing "printed" documents

Phil

[NeoPa]

I see. That makes it much clearer. I'm not sure if they're actual limits or just illustrative examples of the size limit.

It may be a good idea to PM Niheel with your thoughts. I've no idea how he'll reply. What may or may not be possible to implement. You can but ask.

[twinnyfo]

The max width and height are imposed on the image, in that the image itself is resized to fit within those constraints. Considering most folks have Full-HD monitors (and now the increasing prevalence of 4K monitors), the image constraint is a bit limiting. I know this forum is many years old (and you state they are working on an updated interface), so we may see some changes.....

[twinnyfo]

Thank you to niheel!

Right click and open in a new tab and it is more bigger!

[PhilOfWalton]

Images are now brilliant.

It was well worth PMing Niheel

Phil

[twinnyfo]

Yep - I had been working with niheel on this a while back. He has been very responsive.

[NeoPa]

Excellent.

In my experience Niheel is very impressed by all you experts that contribute so much of your time and energy to his baby (Bytes.com). You may be new fans of his, but he's been a fan of you all for a long time.

I'm very glad he was able to turn that around so promptly. Some things are much harder than others of course. You'll only know if you ask. I do know he'll try to help where and when he can though.

[zmbd]

hmm... looks like I need to back and reload the images in the insights article - Thank you PhilOfWalton , TwinnyFo, NeoPa, and Niheel for making it happen! :)

[NeoPa]

Very good idea Z. Those articles are the most important I find. Keep linking across to articles where possible. Let's not undervalue all that hard work.

[zmbd]

First post has been essentially fininshed. added a bit more to the bottom. As the controls are added to the article I plan to hyper-link each of the listed controls to their post to make navigation through the thread easier.

The first set of controls... [TextBox] and [Label] have been added. I put these two into one post because the [Label] by default is usually tagged in and associated with the TextBox