TreeView: Faux Direct Edit?

[(PeteCresswell)]

I've got a TreeView that's very wide - goes across the whole screen.

Under the TreeView is a "Details" subform that shows detail information for the
currently-selected tree node.

Topmost nodes on the tree are very wide: text concatenations of about 10 detail
fields padded so they form columns when only top-level nodes are visible.

Presently the user can click "Change" and the detail subform goes into edit
mode, allowing the user to change and then save the detail info - after which
the TreeView node is refreshed with any changed info.

User, however, now wants to do something like double-click on a top-level node
and then be able to directly edit the fields contained in it. These guys are
under a lot of pressure and run on caffeine - so every keystroke/microsecond is
important to them.

My only idea so far is to pop a little dialog form that's about a quarter inch
high and as wide as the TreeView and has the relevant fields placed in the same
columnar locations as the TreeView node's text plus a couple of little buttons:
"Save" and "Cancel". That would give the illusion of being able to type
directly into the TreeView. Only problem I have with that is that I'd need to
figure out how to dynamically position the dialog so it pops over top of the
node that was double clicked on.

I know the TreeView can be set tb directly edited, but the nature of that top
node (many fields concatenated/padded into apparent columns) seems to mitigate
against that simpler approach.

Anybody been here?

Other approaches?

 

[Tony Toews]

User, however, now wants to do something like double-click on a top-level node
and then be able to directly edit the fields contained in it.

Makes sense

My only idea so far is to pop a little dialog form that's about a quarter inch
high and as wide as the TreeView and has the relevant fields placed in the same
columnar locations as the TreeView node's text plus a couple of little buttons:
"Save" and "Cancel". That would give the illusion of being able to type
directly into the TreeView. Only problem I have with that is that I'd need to
figure out how to dynamically position the dialog so it pops over top of the
node that was double clicked on.

That could be tough, or impossible, figuring out where the vertical
scroll bar is and such. Hmm, how about doing a screen capture of the
treeview and superimposing something on top of that? Nope, you still
wouldn't know where the field is.

I know the TreeView can be set tb directly edited, but the nature of that top
node (many fields concatenated/padded into apparent columns) seems to mitigate
against that simpler approach.

Making visible or not the various fields below the treeview and above
the subform wouldn't work well? Probably not as it would take up
real estate.

Same with a popup modal form I presume.
Tony
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Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
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[(PeteCresswell)]

Per Tony Toews:

Making visible or not the various fields below the treeview and above
the subform wouldn't work well?

No because none of them exist as nodes. They're all in the "detail" subform
below.


I'm warming up to the wide dialog in spite of not knowing how to position it
precisely. I don't think it has tb that precise now that I'm working through
it... sort of a "Nice To Have", but not a "Must".