[AccessD] Form navigation

Hi Dan

Yes, the forms are grouped. So within a group it is very easy to navigate
between the forms.
However, if one group is active and you need to jump to a form in another
group, you have to travel to the top and then down the other branch.
If Arthur finds his treeview menu I'll study that, though one problem with
treeviews is that all leafs appear equal. This is fine in many cases but
probably not here, because some forms are much more important or frequently
used than others.

To further complicate matters I would prefer a system that is easy to
modify, as the application is planned to evolve quite a bit.

/gustav

-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] På vegne af Dan Waters
Sendt: 30. september 2013 15:51
Til: 'Access Developers discussion and problem solving'
Emne: Re: [AccessD] Form navigation

Hi Gustav,

With 50 forms I'm going to guess that you could create some groups of forms
that have related functionality.

Perhaps a wide narrow form at the top of the screen could contain several
comboboxes where each one contains the names of those forms?  Users could
tab into the combobox they want, then just begin typing the name of their
form, then hit enter.  

Or, perhaps just a list of form name labels from top to bottom in a tall and
narrow form at the left side of the screen.  Users could just click the
label to open the form they need.

I do use a treeview in my app - and it's great because it shows many records
which are constantly changing.  But it takes a lot of clicking to get to
what to you want - and because the forms you use are rarely changed there
are better ways to allow users to quickly get at their form.

Good Luck!
Dan

-----Original Message-----
From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Gustav Brock
Sent: Monday, September 30, 2013 5:06 AM
To: 'Access Developers discussion and problem solving'
Subject: [AccessD] Form navigation

Hi all

I'm working with an A2010 application to be used by about 100 users from
different business areas.
The users are trained and will use the app extensively.

It has about 50 forms and a dozen reports. Currently we are using what I
believe is the native switchboard of Access (I didn't build it), but I find
it clumsy, and it takes too much screen estate even though all users are
equipped with 24" monitors or dual monitors. However, the biggest
disadvantage is that once a menu branch is chosen, the other branches are
hidden, so if you are working in different corners you have a lot of going
up and down in the navigation form.

Could anyone suggest a proven alternative? The treeview is gone, I believe,
but how about the ribbon? The users are using some of the general options on
the native band, so how would you combine those with custom options?
Other ideas?

/gustav