Listboxes and number of records

[MrBitsy]

I am filling a listbox at form open that contains 8700 records. As my
listbox can only display 15 rows, whats the point in bringing back over
8000? I am thinking of coding something that will only bring back 15 rows
and then bring further records back as the user scrolls through the list.

So, the first 15 records are retreived and the user then pages down. The
first 15 records need to be put somewhere (a listbox or array?) and the next
15 retreived.

Would this be possible? Have any of you already tried this and decided its
not worth the effort with time saved retreiving so many records? If it has
been tried could you point me to a web resouce that may explain what I am
trying to do?

Thanks,

Ray Keattch.

 

[Rick Brandt]

I am filling a listbox at form open that contains 8700 records. As my
listbox can only display 15 rows, whats the point in bringing back over
8000? I am thinking of coding something that will only bring back 15 rows
and then bring further records back as the user scrolls through the list.

So, the first 15 records are retreived and the user then pages down. The
first 15 records need to be put somewhere (a listbox or array?) and the next
15 retreived.

Would this be possible? Have any of you already tried this and decided its
not worth the effort with time saved retreiving so many records? If it has
been tried could you point me to a web resouce that may explain what I am
trying to do?

I wouldn't bother. Access already does this for you. It will cache in a
few "pages" worth of rows and then retrieve more as the user scrolls. That
is why the scroll "thumb" does not accurately represent the position in the
list or cause a live scroll until the user has forced the last row to be
retrieved. Try it and you'll see what I mean.

 

[Albert D. Kallal]

Any listbox with more then 30 to 40 entries IN TOTAL is going to be way too
much torture on the user. You need to provide some search type approach to
make things easer for the user.

Here is some ideas:

http://www.attcanada.net/~kallal.msn/Search/index.html

And a example of a "drill down":

http://www.attcanada.net/~kallal.msn/Articles/Grid.htm

 

[MrBitsy]

Any listbox with more then 30 to 40 entries IN TOTAL is going to be
way too much torture on the user. You need to provide some search
type approach to make things easer for the user.

Here is some ideas:

http://www.attcanada.net/~kallal.msn/Search/index.html

And a example of a "drill down":

http://www.attcanada.net/~kallal.msn/Articles/Grid.htm

That was a very interesting read. The way I was taught at my company was to
use combos and build a SQL string from the contents of those combos. A
listbox then displays the results of those combos.

Subforms were frowned upon and have been strictly forbidden - I have never
looked at using them! From your articles I am very interested in having a
look at subforms as the lack of formatting in listboxes is becoming a
problem.

The previous poster in this thread suggests Access does not bring back every
row in a recordset, but automatically only brings the records back that can
be displayed. Would you agree with this?

Thanks very much for the subform pointer, I WILL nmow give them some time!

 

[Albert D. Kallal]

It is amazing, but ms-access is actually quite good at limiting the number
of records returned.

The real question is how many entry's in a listbox, or combo box makes sense
to the user. Large numbers just don't allow the user to narrow down the
selection.

Also, if/when you move the data to sql server, then the combo boxes need
more attenction, as then ms-access is not as smart as when using JET.