How can I drag and drop a file into an Access form field?

[Fusioncell]

Not unlike dragging a file into the notes field of a MS-Outlook Contacts, I
would like to drag and drop a file into an Access Db form. I do not want to
edit and type out a hyperlink every time I want to use OLE objects. In the
design fields of Outlook Contacts, I have discovered that 'drag and drop' is
a Microsoft System property. Unfortunately, I can find no reference to
using this property in MS-ACCESS 2003.
Thus, can anyone guide me to learning how to design a 'drag and drop'
property?

 

[Tom Ellison]

Dear Fuse:

Wow! I was just reminiscing on some of my original Excel applications. One
of the things I enjoyed doing was to drag-and-drop things. I do miss that
at times, when it seems an extremely normal way to do things.

Well, I guess you could build this in Excel and incorporate it.

More seriously, what's the problem with copy and paste? That's already
"built in."

Tom Ellison

 

[John Nurick]

If you drag a file onto a textbox bound to a hyperlink field, Access
creates the hyperlink for you.

Otherwise, I think it's possible to implement a limited and somewhat
clunky drag and drop using VBA and the Windows API: a search at
http://groups.google.com should find some pointers.

 

[Fusioncell]

John,

I appreciate your guidance, thanks for the quick reply. IIt is pretty easy
to drag or paste a textbox (or even a file) into a hyperlinked field; yet
that one instance of dragging only allows one file into the frame at a time.
The next file dragged inside, overwrites the first. Hence, I guess I am
stuck with no simple way except to delve more deeply into finding a smooth
VBA routine. If you happen to come across a google

Thus, I continue looking for a way to just display an icon associated to
file type for multiple files dragged into a bound object frame. Just like
we do when we drag files into Outlook contacts, a word file, or even Power
Point.

I'll do that groups search at google.

Best Regard,
Sam DiFrancis

 

[John Nurick]

Hi Sam,

It's not worth trying to store multiple hyperlinks in one field. (Even
Outlook doesn't do it, it just seems to). Instead, create a second table
just for the hyperlinks, with a M:1 relationship with your main table.
It could have just three fields:

ID - Autonumber*
XXX - field with the same name and type as the primary key
of your main table
Link - hyperlink

The simplest user interface to create is then to have a subform on your
main form, bound to this table. The user can then add a link by simply
dragging a document onto the new record at the bottom of the subform.
But even if I wanted to create a more Outlook-like user interface I'd
still use a separate table to store the hyperlinks and their metadata.