Combo box lookup/autonumber problems!

[Stacy]

Thanks to Keith for your comments on my last post - I went at it from a
different angle, as suggested, and the problem was that the fields
weren't bound. It's working now!

I have a new dilemma, though.

On my form, the first field is the I_ID field, which is bound to the
primary key (I_ID) of the tblIssue table. I can use the scroll wheel
of the mouse to scan through the existing records to reach the one I
want, and the rest of the fields on the form populate correctly with
info from that record.

However, the combo box will not provide me with values on drop-down to
select the value I want and have the form go directly to that record.
I also can't enter text in the field to go to the record I want. These
are both problems because it's not going to be intuitive that the user
must use either a scroll mouse or up-down cursors to navigate to the
record they want - they will need to be able to drop down and click on
issue number 15 and have that issue display the same way it currently
is by scrolling through the records to issue number 15.

As additional information, the I_ID field *is* an autonumber field, and
I believe the reason I'm not given any drop down values and am not able
to enter text in the field is because the autonumber field is
non-updateable. However, I'm trying to use this field only for lookup
purposes (and to point to that record so when the form is submitted,
the right record is updated). The data in that field should never be
updated.

Help?

Stacy

 

[jahoobob via AccessMonster.com]

The easiest way to do what you want is place a combo on te form that is
intended to search. To do this, in the form's design view, make sure the
Wizad is on and place a combo box on your form. select the third choice on
the first window of the wizard, select the fields you want the user to base
the look-up on - not the I_ID field.

 

[Stacy]

I did that - I set the form up with an unbound combo box that will
populate the drop down the the record IDs I need it to - even excluding
records that shouldn't be available on that form. However, now if I
use the scroll or cursors to navigate, it will update all the other
fields on the form with the info from those fields in the corresponding
record I've scrolled to, but it's still displaying records that
shouldn't be accessed by that form, and as I scroll through those
records, the one field that *doesn't* update is the combobox I'm using
to search. If they use the mouse to scroll, and they are editing Issue
#5, but the Issue Number field is displayed as Issue Number #2, people
are going to get confused.

For the time being, I worked around it by removing all the records that
shouldn't be edited to an archival table so they can't be accessed.
However, that action is creating problems in developing queries and
reports to display a total count of ALL issues, regardless of which
table they are in, because the active and archived tables are not
linked (and if I link them, it causes further problems). So, at this
point, I'm very much at a loss...