Creating Forms

1
Creating Forms

• Course Form
• In the main window (cf. Figure 2), click on
  Forms, then double-click on Create form by using
  wizard.
• Follow the sequence of actions below.

2
Course Form

• In Figure 12, choose the table that you want to
  create a form for, in our case Course, then
  choose all the fields so that they are moved
  from the Available Fields to Selected Fields. In
  the figure, this is already done. Press Next.
• In the second wizard window, choose a layout form
  (Columnar is our choice). Press Next.
• In the third wizard window, choose a style
  (Standard is our choice). Press Next.
• In the fourth wizard window, choose a name for
  this form (Course is fine), and keep the option
  Open the form to view or enter data. Press
  Finish.

3
Course Form
4
Course Form

• A window as in Figure 13 appears. It contains
  data from our Course table.
• You can browse through the entries with the
  buttons on the bottom part of the window.
• Note that the shown labels contain the strings
  that we chose in the Caption field when the
  created the table.
• We can now adjust the layout of the form by
  entering the form in design view, e.g. by
  pressing the left-most button on the tool bar.

5
Course Form
6
Course Form

• Adjust the length of fields by dragging their
  borders to an appropriate size.
• Prevent users from editing the primary key by (a)
  right-clicking in the CourseID field and choosing
  Properties from the popup menu or (b) by
  double-clicking on the CourseID field.
• Properties are your way of managing forms. Get
  used to the ugly display of information and the
  sparse information. This is the place where you
  do all the important changes to a form.
• Disable the CourseID field by setting the
  property Enable (in tab All or Data) to No.
• Close the Properties-window, save the form and
  open it in form view. It now looks like Figure
  15.

7
Course Form
8
How to get rid of displayed keys in the form.

• Open the Course form in design view and double
  click on the field (not the label) CourseInstID.
  This opens the Property window for the combo box
  CourseInstID. And now comes the cryptic part
  which would take ages to find in the
  documentation!
• Instead of basing the contents of this combo box
  on a query that returns only the institution id,
  we base it on a query that also returns the
  institution abbreviation.
• Switch to tab Data.
• Put the cursor in the field Row Source (where
  some SQL is displayed) and click on the -Button
  that appears to the right of the field. That
  opens a query editor as shown in Figure 16.

9
How to get rid of displayed keys in the form
10
How to get rid of displayed keys in the form

• Drag the text InstAbbr from the upper part of the
  window to the empty column on the lower part of
  the window so that it appears next to InstID.

11
How to get rid of displayed keys in the form

• Close the query builder and save the query. You
  are now back in the Properties window for
  CourseInstID.
• In tab Data, make sure that Bound Column contains
  a 1 (digit one) if InstID is the first column
  returned from your query.
• Switch to tab Format.
• Change the value for Column Count from 1 to 2
  (our query returns now two columns not one).
• Change the value for Column Widths from something
  like 2.54cm to 0cm3cm (meaning that you do not
  at all want to display the first column (0cm) but
  the second column with a width of 3cm). This was
  straightforward, right?
• Close the Properties-window.
• Change the label of CourseInstID to e.g.
  Responsible Institution.
• Save the form and display it in form view (cf.
  Figure 18).

12
How to get rid of displayed keys in the form
13
Student Form with Course Information

• In the first wizard window, we choose fields from
  the following tables
• Student All fields
• Participate PartCourseID, PartYear
• Course CourseName, CourseLevel
• Institution InstAbbr, InstName
• In the second wizard window, choose to see data
  by student and form with subforms.
• In the third wizard window, choose Tabular
  layout.
• In the fourth wizard window, choose Standard
  style.
• In the fifth window, accept the suggested names
  Student and Participate Subform and finish.
• The following first look of our form is shown.

14
Student Form with Course Information
15
Student Form with Course Information

• Now edit the form in design view
• Disable the StudentID-field.
• Adjust the length of some fields and labels if
  necessary.
• Do not display the PartCourseID but the course
  abbreviation.
• Open the properties of the field PartCourseID.
• Change the query to include not only
  Course.CourseID but also Course.CourseAbbr.
• Follow the subsequent steps from above (How to
  get rid of displayed keys in the form) by
  checking andif necessaryediting the properties
  Bound Column (new value probably 1), Column
  Count (new value 2), Column Widths (new value
  e.g. 0cm3cm).
• Save the form and display it in form view (cf.
  Figure 20)

16
Student Form with Course Information
17
Adding a button for editing course information

• From the form that we created above, we also
  want to add new courses.
• We add a button to the Student-form that opens
  our previously created form Course from this
  Student-form window.
• Open the Student-form in design view.
• If not already open, open the floating window
  Toolbox from the menu View Toolbox.
• Choose a Command Button from the toolbox (the
  tool tips over the icons will tell you which is
  the command button).
• Draw the button on the form.
• Automatically, the command button wizard will
  open and help you configure the button.

18
Adding a button for editing course information

• In Categories, choose Form Operations.
• In Actions, choose Open Form.
• Click Next and identify the form (i.e. Course)
  that you want to open.
• Choose Open the form and display all records.
  Click Next.
• Choose an appropriate name or symbol for the
  button on the form. Click Next.
• Choose a name for the button widget. Click
  Finish.
• Save the form, open it in form view and check
  that the button works by opening the course form
  and adding a new course.

19
Adding a button for editing course information
If you now try to assign students to the new
course, you will note that the new course is not
available in the Participate-subform! You must
refresh the Student form before this is possible.
20
Simple Report

• In the Access main window, choose Reports.
• Click on Create report by using wizard.
• In the first wizard window, you have to choose
  which columns from which tables you want to
  display on your report (just as on a form).
  Choose the following columns
• From table Course CourseAbbr, CourseName
• From table Participate PartYear,
• From table Student StudentLastName,
  StudentFirstName
• Click Next.
• View data by Course. Click Next.
• Choose a second grouping level on the year the
  students to the course.
• Choose PartYear as an additional grouping level.

21
Simple Report

• Press on the gt button to update the report
  preview on the right-hand side of the window (cf.
  Figure 21).

22
Simple Report

• Click Next.
• Order the students by last and first name. Click
  Next.
• Choose e.g. a Stepped lay out. Click Next.
• Choose e.g. Formal style. Click Next.
• Set or accept the name for the report, e.g.
  CourseReport. Click Finish. A report as in Figure
  22 displays

23
Simple Report
You can now choose to open the report to make
changes to the layout, e.g. choosing a different
font or size for some fields, adjusting the
lengths of fields, etc. The handling of a report
layout is similar to the handling of format
layouts.