Hiding the Access App. Window to leave only a "pop-up" form

[Robin]

I have a system where the user interface is a single form. Users have no
need to access anything else, other than through links on this form. This
form is a "pop-up", which means it can live outside of the Access
Application window. This is useful in that it allows access to other areas
of the desktop without minimising the form.

I would like to be able to run this such that to a user, it looks like the
pop-up form *is* the application, i.e. with the Access application window
minimised on the taskbar and the pop-up form behaving like any other open
window on the desktop.

I've tried making the form pop-up *and* modal, which seems to hint at this
functionality, but doesn't really work. Making the form modal also has the
disadvantage that right click filter options are greyed out. ??

Is there a way of doing this? I'm not really trying to lock anything down -
just trying to make it more user friendly.

Regards,

Robin

 

[Dirk Goldgar]

I have a system where the user interface is a single form. Users
have no need to access anything else, other than through links on
this form. This form is a "pop-up", which means it can live outside
of the Access Application window. This is useful in that it allows
access to other areas of the desktop without minimising the form.

I would like to be able to run this such that to a user, it looks
like the pop-up form *is* the application, i.e. with the Access
application window minimised on the taskbar and the pop-up form
behaving like any other open window on the desktop.

I've tried making the form pop-up *and* modal, which seems to hint at
this functionality, but doesn't really work. Making the form modal
also has the disadvantage that right click filter options are greyed
out. ??

Is there a way of doing this? I'm not really trying to lock anything
down - just trying to make it more user friendly.

Regards,

Robin

Did you follow the instructions and make the API call described at

http://www.mvps.org/access/api/api0019.htm

That has always worked for me, except that it doesn't mention that the
form must be both PopUp *and* modal, for recent versions of Windows.

 

[Robin]

Wow - that has got to be the fastest response ever! Thanks - I'll go and
look!

 

[Robin]

Did you follow the instructions and make the API call described at

http://www.mvps.org/access/api/api0019.htm

That has always worked for me, except that it doesn't mention that the
form must be both PopUp *and* modal, for recent versions of Windows.

FYI I'm using 2003.

I have just been through some very odd outcomes, with unexpected msgbox
results, but I do at last understand what you said! The results look good
and are exactly what I was looking for.

I still have some combinations of pop-up, modal and nCmdShow to investigate,
but I have a few side effects from the options I've used so far...

1) Parts of the form refresh visibly (painfully), on moving between records
2) All right mouse click options are disabled - the menu just doesn't appear
(users have been trained to use this for filtering and sorting).

Any ideas?

Regards,

Robin

 

[Dirk Goldgar]

FYI I'm using 2003.

I have just been through some very odd outcomes, with unexpected
msgbox results, but I do at last understand what you said! The
results look good and are exactly what I was looking for.

I still have some combinations of pop-up, modal and nCmdShow to
investigate, but I have a few side effects from the options I've used
so far...

1) Parts of the form refresh visibly (painfully), on moving between
records

I haven't used this technique much, but I haven't observed this
behavior. Are you sure there isn't something else going on that is
causing it? Does it happen when the Access window isn't hidden?

2) All right mouse click options are disabled - the menu just
doesn't appear (users have been trained to use this for filtering and
sorting).

Interesting. On a test form I just checked, I do get the context menu.
However, the filtering options and some others are disabled. Sort
options and copy/cut/paste actions are enabled, though.