[AccessD] Sidebar navigation

Hi Joshua - I have done something along those lines - not quite like
Outlook, but the idea may be of some help if you have to go that way.

I had to create a form which allows users of different departments to see a
'process'. I created a form with a subform - the subform (tall and narrow -
about 2.5 cm wide x length of screen ) remained always visible on the left
hand side of the screen while the contents on the right changed.

Eg. The narrow form on the left displayed the names of the 10 departments in
the organisation. By default it displayed 'Sales' and subforms 1 and 2 were
loaded and made visible on the right. But users could select 'All' and see
the entire process which involved 32 (!) subforms of content on the right.
But by selecting their department name on the subform the main form then
only displayed the appropriate subforms for their department.

It was a bit more complicated than that, but the general idea is that to
have a form sitting on the side of a main form the properties you need on
the subform are:

Popup: Yes
Modal: No
Border style: None
Autoresize: No
Autocenter = No

The main form has an on open event with the code:
DoCmd.OpenForm "Frmnpdpopup", acNormal, , , , acNormal

This was a while ago but I remember that to get the subform to sit exactly
where you want you need to:
- set the border style of the subform to sizable (so that you can resize the
form)
- open the form in form view, and restore the window so that the form is
shown in the same size as it would appear on the subform
- Size the form and place it exactly where you want it (remember that it has
autoresize=No and Autocenter = no)
- Save the form (Just do a Ctrl+S even though you're in form view - it
works).

Not that the form size / position is locked in, then go back to design view
and change the border style back to None. Save / close.

To allow the subform to act as a 'toolbar' in my case I did the following:
- Place all my 32 subforms onto the main form.
- Removed the source object from each, so they are unbound.
- Add a list box of options to the subform on the left.
- The listbox on the subform has an 'on click' event which makes the
appropriate subforms on the right visible / not visible, and loads their
source object (if not loaded already - I had a routine which checked that).
- If you need to position multiple forms like I did, then you can do that by
using their 'top' to put them in the right place.

If you can avoid going down this route then I would - incredibly time
consuming for me. But if there is a strong requirement from the client then
it can work very well.

I had to make sure that I would be paid for all the mucking around it took
and in the end the result was very slick and the client was extremely happy.
I can send you some screen prints if it helps.

Good luck - Kath

----- Original Message -----
From: "Joshua B" <lists at jbsolutions.com.au>
To: "Access Developers discussion and problem solving"
<accessd at databaseadvisors.com>
Sent: Monday, September 01, 2003 12:53 PM
Subject: [AccessD] Sidebar navigation


> Hi Group,
>
> A client of mine has requested that instead of having a "switchboard/main
menu" type setup for navigation within their app, they would prefer to have
a sidebar menu ala Access & Outlook. Has anyone had any luck designing this
sort of interface within Access? My initial thoughts are to have a popup
form and control it's size to take up a portion of the left hand side of the
screen, however this means I would no longer be able to maximise other
forms. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.
>
> Best regards.
> Joshua B
> lists at jbsolutions.com.au
> www.jbsolutions.com.au
> 2003-09-01
>
>
>
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