Data Field Design

 Controls and Sections Sizing

Resizing an object allows you to change its height or its width. This can be applied to forms, reports, their sections, or the controls they are hosting. To physically change the width of a form or a report, position the mouse on its right border until the cursor turns into a vertical beam with a double-horizontal arrow:

Then click and drag left or right until you are satisfied.

The height of a form or report is controlled by its sections. For this reason, each section controls its own height. The total heights of all sections constitute the height of the form. Based on this, to resize a form, you must actually resize one or some of its sections. To heighten a section on a form or a report, position the mouse on the lower portion of the section. For the Header or the Detail sections, that will be the upper border of the lower bar. For the Footer section, the mouse must be positioned on the lower border. The cursor turns into a narrow horizontal line with a vertical double-arrow:

To change the width of the form or report and the height of the lowest section at the same time, you can position the mouse on the lower-right corner. The cursor would change into a small square with 4 arrows:

You can then click and drag left, right, up, down, or diagonally.

When the mouse moves over a selected control and reaches one of the handles, the mouse pointer displays a double-arrow cursor. The possible mouse pointers are:

Pointer	Role
	Shrinks or heightens the control
	Resizes the control in North-East <-> South-West direction
	Narrows or widens the control
	Resizes the control in North-West <-> South-East direction

Although these pointers can be used to resize one control, they can also be applied to a group of controls.

1. To increase the height of the Form Header section, position the mouse on the upper border of the Detail bar. Click and drag down until the line reaches the third mark (or the 1 cm mark) inside the vertical ruler:
    
2. To widen the form, click and drag the right border of one of the sections to the right until it is at 4 grid units (or 10 cm) right from the most right control
3. Click and unoccupied area on the form to dismiss the selection (just in case a control is selected)
   Click the EmployeeNumber text box to select it
4. Position the mouse on the lower border of the selected control until the cursor turns into a vertical double arrows
5. Click and drag down by 2 units (or ½ cm). Then release the mouse
6. Click the FirstName text box to select it
7. Press and hold Shift
8. While Shift is still down, click the MiddleName text box followed by the LastName text box and release the Shift 
9. Position the mouse on the middle right handle of one of the selected controls:
    
10. Then click and drag left by one unit (or ¼ cm) of the horizontal ruler. Notice that all three text boxes have been narrowed
11. Click the EmailAddress text box. Press and hold Shift. Then click the DateHired text box, and the FirstName text box. Release Shift
12. On the main menu, click Format -> Size -> To Narrowest. Notice that all of the selected text boxes have been resized to the narrowest of the group, in this case the FirstName text box

Controls Deletion

If you have added a control or it was created by the Form Wizard or the Report Wizard, you can delete it. You can also delete a group of controls in one step.

To remove a control from the form or report, first click it and press Delete. If you click a text box or a control that is accompanied by a label and delete it, its label is deleted also.

To remove a group of controls, select them and press Delete.

1. On the form, click the EmployeeNumber text box to select it and press Delete. Notice that the text and its accompanying label have been removed
2. Click the MiddleName label and press Delete. Notice that only the label has been removed, leaving the MiddleName text box
   
   Here is what we have learned so far:
    

   What we have learned in this section about form and report design

   At this time we have learned how to select: One control on the form: You click it Controls on the same area of the form: You draw a fake rectangle that would touch everyone of them A few controls on the form: You click one, press and hold Shift, then click each of the desired controls Select all items that are vertically aligned: you click inside of the horizontal line as if you were dropping a ball that would touch all of them Select all items that are horizontally aligned: you click inside of the vertical line as if you were throwing a ball that would touch all items on the same line Select everything on the form: Press Ctrl + A We also learned how to move: One control: Drag a pointing finger mouse pointer on the control's upper left corner A text box with its corresponding label: drag an open hand mouse pointer on it Many controls: Drag an open hand mouse pointer on one of the selected controls And we learned how to align: A control relative to another: once both are selected, right-click one of the selected controls, position the mouse on Align, and make your selection Many controls relative to another or others. Same thing as above We learned how to resize a control: after selecting it, position your mouse on one of its borders or corners and drag the double arrow mouse pointer

3. Based on this, design the form as follows:
    
4. After designing the form, to preview it, on the Form Design toolbar, click the View button
5. Press Tab a few times to move the cursor from one text box to another

 Tab Ordering

The controls on a form are aligned in the order you desire for their sequence. Unfortunately, when you add a control on the form that already has other controls, regardless of the section or area you place the new control, it is sequentially positioned at the end of the existing controls. If you don't fix it, the data entry personnel could have a hard time figuring out how the sequence should be followed. When writing Visual Basic code, you will also find out that the sequence of navigation of controls on a form is very important.

The sequence of controls navigation is set using the Tab Order dialog box. The Tab Order dialog box is available when the form is opened in Design View. Once in Design View, either (1) on the menu bar, click View -> Tab Order; or (2) right-click on the form and click Tab Order.

The simplest and quickest way to rearrange the order of items is to click the Auto Order button. Sometimes, you will not like the arrangement made by the Tab Order dialog box. To rearrange items manually, move a row or a group of rows using the same technique we used to move field names on a table's Design View.

1. To switch the form to Design View, on the Form View toolbar, click the View button
2. On the main menu, click View -> Tab Order…
3. Position your mouse on the left of LastName, on the row header until the mouse turns into a right pointing arrow: 
4. Click to select the row, and release the mouse
5. Click and hold your mouse on the same row header
6. Drag down by two rows and notice the horizontal line that guides you
7. Then release the mouse
8. Now that you have seen how to reorder the list of controls, arrange it to have the following sequence (this sequence assumes that your form looks like ours in design):
    
9. Click OK to acknowledge the order
10. To preview the form, right-click its title bar and click Form View
11. On the main menu, click Window -> Size To Fit Form
12. To save the form, press Ctrl + S
13. To close the form, press Ctrl + F4

Opening an "Un-Openable" Form

Some of the forms created by the Database Wizard were programmed not to be opened from the Database Window, for good reasons. To explain why, here is an example.

Imagine that you create a form to process credit card payments when a customer has chosen to perform such a form of payment. The form used to process this payment should be opened only when the customer has decided to make a payment with a credit card. The user does not need to open such a form from the Database Window. Therefore, you would prevent this form from being accessed in any other way than from the form that is supposed to request its service. In the Rockville Techno database, such forms are the Project (since every project is related to a particular client, the Projects form should be opened from a chosen client), the Payment (unless performing a payment, and we want a particular payment to be related to the appropriate project, the Payment form should not be opened otherwise), and etc forms.

To open such a form, you have two alternatives:

• From its parent form
• In Design View

To open such a form in Form View (or in Datasheet View if that is the way the database developer wanted to display it), open its parent form, and click the appropriate button to open the desired form (all these dependent forms have their button on the parent form).

To open the form in Design View, you don't have to have its parent form; you can:

1. Right-click the desired form in Database Window and click Design View
2. Click the form to select it and click the Design button on the Database Window

1. Make sure any form is closed (this is not necessary but desired)
2. On the Database Window, make sure the Forms button is clicked
3. From the Database Window, double-click Projects. Notice that a small message form requests an entry from you; otherwise it would not open the form. Click Cancel. 
4. Right-click Projects and click Design View. Notice that this time, it opens. 
5. Close the Projects form by clicking its system Close button 
6. On the Database Window, click Payments to select it
7. On the toolbar of the Database Window, click Design. That opens the Payments form in Design View
8. To close it, click its system Close button

MOUS Topics

Exercises 

1. Open the Yugo National Bank database and open the AccountTypes form in Design View. Set its Record Source to AccountTypes and delete the text boxes on the form. Using its Field List, add its fields to the form and design it as follows:
    

   Save and close the form

2. Use AutoForm to generate a form for each of the following tables and save the form with the following name
    

   Table Name	Form Name
   Customers	Customers
   Employees	Employees
   TransactionTypes	TransactionTypes

    

3. Design the forms as follows and save them: