MS Rant - TabIndexes

[David C. Holley]

At what point in time is MS going to alter Forms so that controls only tab
between controls on the same page? Building a wizard where you want the user
to be able to TAB, just like the rest of every application out there, would
be so much easier.

 

[Tony Toews [MVP]]

At what point in time is MS going to alter Forms so that controls only tab
between controls on the same page? Building a wizard where you want the user
to be able to TAB, just like the rest of every application out there, would
be so much easier.

I don't quite understand the problem here. Using the tab key skips
from page to page?

Tony
--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
Tony's Main MS Access pages - http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm
Tony's Microsoft Access Blog - http://msmvps.com/blogs/access/
For a convenient utility to keep your users FEs and other files
updated see http://www.autofeupdater.com/
Granite Fleet Manager http://www.granitefleet.com/

 

[David C. Holley]

From what I can tell, when you're working with multiple pages using the tab
key will tab from control to control and change pages if the next control is
on another page. I want the user to remain on the same page and only move
via a NEXT or PREVIOUS button.

 

[Tom van Stiphout]

I'm with Tony: what exactly do you mean by "pages"?
There may be a solution, but we need to first be on the same page

-Tom.
Microsoft Access MVP

 

[David C. Holley]

I'm building a wizard. By 'pages' I'm referring to the sections of the form
that are separated from each other using page break control.

 

[Tony Toews [MVP]]

From what I can tell, when you're working with multiple pages using the tab
key will tab from control to control and change pages if the next control is
on another page. I want the user to remain on the same page and only move
via a NEXT or PREVIOUS button.

As with Tom I'm not sure what you mean by page. Do you mean page on a
tab control? Where there are controls such as text boxes, combo boxes
and subforms on each page.

Tony
--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
Tony's Main MS Access pages - http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm
Tony's Microsoft Access Blog - http://msmvps.com/blogs/access/
For a convenient utility to keep your users FEs and other files
updated see http://www.autofeupdater.com/
Granite Fleet Manager http://www.granitefleet.com/

 

[Tom van Stiphout]

Oh, THOSE pages
If you want to tab around within one page, consider this trick: the
last control of a Page could have a LostFocus event that sets focus to
the first control of the page.

Personally I would write a wizard using the Tab control: develop
multiple tabs which are the pages, and at the last moment turn off the
display of the tabs.

-Tom.
Microsoft Access MVP

 

[Tony Toews [MVP]]

I'm building a wizard. By 'pages' I'm referring to the sections of the form
that are separated from each other using page break control.

Ahhhh. What I did in VB6 was to put the controls into a frame. When
the form is displayed in user view, rather than design view, I resized
the form programmatically to be just large enough for the frame and
the back next buttons, etc. Then I moved the frame into and out of
view as they want from page to page clicking on the next

You can see how this works by downloading the Auto FE Updater utility,
see my sig below, and either running the wizard or creating a
configuration file and then updating the config file.

Tony
--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
Tony's Main MS Access pages - http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm
Tony's Microsoft Access Blog - http://msmvps.com/blogs/access/
For a convenient utility to keep your users FEs and other files
updated see http://www.autofeupdater.com/
Granite Fleet Manager http://www.granitefleet.com/

 

[Tony Toews [MVP]]

Personally I would write a wizard using the Tab control: develop
multiple tabs which are the pages, and at the last moment turn off the
display of the tabs.

Trouble is I don't know if you can turn off the tabs visibility but
leave the controls in the tabs visible. OTOH I never tried it.
<smile>

Tony
--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
Tony's Main MS Access pages - http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm
Tony's Microsoft Access Blog - http://msmvps.com/blogs/access/
For a convenient utility to keep your users FEs and other files
updated see http://www.autofeupdater.com/
Granite Fleet Manager http://www.granitefleet.com/

 

[Arvin Meyer [MVP]]

Trouble is I don't know if you can turn off the tabs visibility but
leave the controls in the tabs visible. OTOH I never tried it.
<smile>

No. When you hide a tab, all the controls on that tab are no longer visible.
Tou can't set focus to them, but you can use them in calculations, etc.
--
Arvin Meyer, MCP, MVP
http://www.datastrat.com
http://www.accessmvp.com
http://www.mvps.org/access
Co-author: "Access 2010 Solutions", published by Wiley

 

[david]

I think this feature (page breaks) has been removed in A2010?

It is designed to save resource memory on Windows 3.1
(Access was a big and heavy memory hog on Windows 3.1)

Now that we are no longer using Windows 3.1, separate forms
or tabbed forms are viable alternatives.

The "Wizards" were originally mini-applications build in Access.
Since MS no longer has the skills or interest in building applications
in Access, the Wizards are orphaned, and poorly supported.

(david)

 

[David C. Holley]

The catch is that its a wizard for running reports were the visibility of
the controls will change based on the report. What I've done is to add two
command buttons to the page, one having the lowest tab index of the controls
on the page, the other with the highest. The GotFocus event of each traps
the tab and then redirects the focus to the appropriate control. The code
that hids/displays the controls (when the report is selected on page 1)
handles figuring out which of the critera-related controls will be visible
and thus which one should receive the focus given that you can't set the
focus to a control that isn't displayed.

 

[Dirk Goldgar]

Personally I would write a wizard using the Tab control: develop
multiple tabs which are the pages, and at the last moment turn off the
display of the tabs.

That's what I do. I turn off the tabs themselves using Style = None.
Although having no tabs makes it a little awkward to work on the tab pages
in design view, I can always switch from one tab page to another by
selecting the page in the object drop-down box or the property sheet.

 

[Dirk Goldgar]

Trouble is I don't know if you can turn off the tabs visibility but
leave the controls in the tabs visible. OTOH I never tried it.
<smile>

If you mean what I think you mean, you can. The tab control has a Style
property (on the Format tab of the property sheet). Set Style to None and
no tabs will be present, only the tab pages.

 

[microsoft]

Well that's a cool trick.

If you mean what I think you mean, you can. The tab control has a Style
property (on the Format tab of the property sheet). Set Style to None and
no tabs will be present, only the tab pages.

--
Dirk Goldgar, MS Access MVP
Access tips: www.datagnostics.com/tips.html

(please reply to the newsgroup)

 

[microsoft]

I need to build a user-setup wizard so I might play with the idea of using a
frame. I'm not too hip on the tab control route since I already detest
situations where controls sit on top of each other - like a continuous form
where the user can toggle between displayed controls.

 

[David W. Fenton]

That's what I do. I turn off the tabs themselves using Style =
None. Although having no tabs makes it a little awkward to work on
the tab pages in design view, I can always switch from one tab
page to another by selecting the page in the object drop-down box
or the property sheet.

But if you're creating a "wizard" you shouldn't have tabs visible in
any event, as that's not part of the standard UI of any MS wizard
I've ever seen.

This is a very common UI for me, and I've never once seen the issue
described because I always turn off display of the tabs.

And, yes, it does make design view inconvenient.

 

[David W. Fenton]

I'm building a wizard. By 'pages' I'm referring to the sections of
the form that are separated from each other using page break
control.

Turn off display of the tabs. That is, change the tab control's
Style property to NONE. The standard wizard UI does not have tabs
visible, in any case, so this is the way you should have had it set
up all along (and in which case, you'd have never have encountered
the problem you describe).

 

[Tony Toews [MVP]]

If you mean what I think you mean, you can. The tab control has a Style
property (on the Format tab of the property sheet). Set Style to None and
no tabs will be present, only the tab pages.

Ahh, I didn't know that. Very nice!

Tony
--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
Tony's Main MS Access pages - http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm
Tony's Microsoft Access Blog - http://msmvps.com/blogs/access/
For a convenient utility to keep your users FEs and other files
updated see http://www.autofeupdater.com/
Granite Fleet Manager http://www.granitefleet.com/

 

[Tony Toews [MVP]]

I need to build a user-setup wizard so I might play with the idea of using a
frame. I'm not too hip on the tab control route since I already detest
situations where controls sit on top of each other - like a continuous form
where the user can toggle between displayed controls.

Dirk's trick should work very nicely as the controls will be on each
tab.

Tony
--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
Tony's Main MS Access pages - http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm
Tony's Microsoft Access Blog - http://msmvps.com/blogs/access/
For a convenient utility to keep your users FEs and other files
updated see http://www.autofeupdater.com/
Granite Fleet Manager http://www.granitefleet.com/