Form similar to EXCEL??

[Matt K.]

Over the years in my organization records have been collected/managed with
EXCEL. The users have grown accustomed to their data-entry tasks using excel.
Basically we will track an item through our shop and as it "goes down the
conveyor belt" an employee will basically give it a date stamp when they are
done witht their task. In excel, for multiple records this can be
accomplished by the Edit>Fill>Down pretty easily.
I am building an Access db/interface to replace the *cumbersome* spreadsheetS.
I have made a form in Access which enables me to do this sort of thing by
letting the user search for a group of records, select them in a listbox,
select the field to update from a combobox and then finally hit a command
button which loops thru the records updating the field. This part work great.
Now, I would like to be able to basically display the updated records with
the updated field, maybe in a datasheet type view, but not with all the
fields in the table. I suppose this would be just for a confirmation to the
user what just happened. I guess I can just use a msgBox or something, but a
nice little subform or simialar would be better for the users at this point.
I can build a subform to display "predetermined" fields, but how to have the
subform display the user selected field they have just updated.
I have a basic understanding of some SQL code. ANY IDEAS??
I hope I have explained this somewhat clear....

 

[BruceM]

Trying to make Access resemble Excel is often a vexing problem. One thought
is that you could use the looping code to change the back color of the combo
box, or something like that. You could also use the code to change to
datasheet view, if you are not already there. This would allow the changed
records to be highlighted. To use a separate form perhaps you could open a
second form when the filter is applied. The second form would be sort of
parallel to the first, but with a text box that could be bound dynamically
through code to the combo box field. Something like that. I'm only jumping
in here because you haven't received a response. I will readily admit that
my suggestion is quite vague.

 

[Matt K.]

Thanks for the input. I have went ahead with putting a subform in datasheet
view (below my multiselect listbox) which displays the same records the user
has searched for. I have made this subform *read-only* by enable=no. That way
the user can't edit something by mistake or otherwise! Unless the user has
selected all records in the listbox, the subform also has records in it that
were not updated.
==I am curious as to how I would "automatically" highlight the changed
records in the datasheet view after the update.==
The user can scroll around the datasheet subform to see data in all the
fields in case they want to update something else.
Your help is appreciated...

 

[BruceM]

To change the color in code, something like:

Me.cboYourComboBox.BackColor = 65535

You can find a color you like by changing the color of a label or something,
then noting the number that represents the color.

The whole business of searching for records and selecting them in a list box
has me puzzled. I had thought there was a filter, but maybe not. I just
don't get what you are trying to do, which accounts in part for the
vagueness of my responses.

One thing you could maybe try is to have a date field in each record, and to
have the form's Dirty event set that field's value to Date(). That will add
the current date to the record. Your subform record source could limit the
recordset to just the records that were modified today. The curiously-named
Dirty event is run when data in the record has been changed, but the record
has not yet been updated. I think I have that right. These are just a few
stray thoughts for future reference, since it sounds as if your project is
working satisfactorily.