Simulated Option Group

This page relates to the first iteration of the “Simulated Option Group” which is now called the “Nifty Option Group”… The “Nifty Option Group” is the latest version, the maintained version, and can be found here:- https://www.niftyaccess.com/nifty-option-group/

Simulated Option Group

The normal MS Access Option Groups are stuck at very small size, and notoriously bland and uninteresting.

This product from Nifty Access is made like my other products, an easy to “Drop In” component to enhance the Look and functionality of your Database.

To use this product all you do is add the provided Class to your Form, a Rectangle which is the “Frame” around your Custom Option Group. Then you add some TextBoxes inside the frame. Change the font of the TextBoxes to Wingdings, add the value you want returned when the simulated checkbox is pressed, into the “Tag Property” of the textbox. Now the frame, you want to save the results of the Clicked on textbox in the underlying table. You tell the code which field to place this value in by adding the “Field Name” to the “Tag Property” of the rectangle (the frame around your set of text boxes). Provide the values of the True & False Wingdings where shown.

And that’s it! The code does the rest! It finds the “Record Source” of your form, it finds the ID field automatically. You’ve told it which field you want to put the results into. It just does it. You need to add a bit of code to your Form, this will be just Cut and Paste, drop it in to your Form, you don’t have to edit the code. For full instructions see my set of installation videos… (Not done yet coming soon)

Simulated Option Group

Simulated Option Group

Video 1 (2.24)

Whilst creating a class module for locking and unlocking controls, I realise that I might be able to apply the techniques I had developed in this exercise to the problem of the very poorly designed check boxes in MS Access.

I realised that I could have a set of text boxes which would contain either a Cross or a Tick, these would be derived from the wingdings 2 set of characters being capital “P” and capital “O” … But how?

The main problem is that the simulated checkboxes will need to be connected to the to a Field In The underlying data. In other words I would have to come up with my own method of binding the new set of checkboxes to the underlying data…

The essence of my lock unlocking code is the frame, the MS Access term for it is a rectangle. This rectangle surrounds the set of simulated the checkboxes. I could add the Bound Field name to the tag property of a Frame, The field name would indicate that this frame rectangle was surrounding a simulated option group. Each simulated checkbox would need to return a value to this underlying field, again this could go in the tag property of each SimChkBox.

I have a working hypothesis of what I wanted to do. I’ve already written some code which just about does most of it, so it should be a simple operation to create a simulated option group from a set of text boxes. This should be very useful for developers who want to make nice custom checkboxes. (SimChkBoxes)

Video 1 (2.24)

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Sim Option Group Setup 1

Sim Option Group Setup 1

Video 2 (10:00)

Wingdings HERE:- https://www.thespreadsheetguru.com/blog/wingdings-webdings-font-icon-cheat-sheet-printable

I froze access to the form from the navigation pane with this code on my website here:- Navigation Pane Stopper

http://www.niftyaccess.com/navigation-pane-stopper/ 

Video 2 (10:00)

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Sim Option Group Setup 2

Sim Option Group Setup 2

Video 3 (2:32)

I wasn’t happy with my initial attempt at this simulated Option Group… So I’ve added some new features which are demonstrated in this video, however when I was testing the option group,if I had a more than one group on one form, then there was an unexpected problem with Code. I need to sort out before I publish this. Watch this space! 

Video 3 (2:32)

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More Useful Stuff HERE:-

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