Microsoft Access 203 Intermediate Access 3 Option Groups, List Boxes, Toggle Buttons, ActiveX Controls, Tab Control, Bound v. Unbound Object Frames, more. 87 Minutes.

This class follows Access 202, which we strongly recommend before taking this class. The main focus for this course is Form Controls. We'll cover all of the form controls we haven't covered in classes to date, including:

• Option Groups & Option Buttons
• List Boxes
• Toggle Buttons
• The ActiveX Calendar Control
• Picture OLE Fields
• Tab Controls
• Bound & Unbound Object Frames
• Image Control
• Line & Rectangle Controls
• And more.

We'll begin by creating an Extended Customer Table so that we can store additional information about our customers, but not take up space in our main Customer Table. There are several benefits to this technique, which I will explain in class.

Next, we'll create an Option Group to track each customer's Gender. We'll use Option Buttons for this.

We will then create a Customer Type List Box to track what type of a customer we're dealing with. This list of types will be user-defined and we'll create a separate table to track this information - so that you can add, edit, and delete the options.

Next, we'll play with the settings for our Option Group - colors and properties and such.

We'll then learn all about Toggle Buttons. We'll create a column of toggle buttons to indicate which services and products each customer buys from us. I'll also teach you a trick for assigning keyboard hot keys to these toggle butons.

In the next lesson, we'll do some more tricks with Combo Boxes. We've done a lot with Combo Boxes in previous classes, but there are a few more examples we need to cover. We'll add a Sales Rep combo box to our Customer Form, and a Service Tech combo box to our Extended Customer form. Both of these will be fed from our Employee table that we built in an earlier class. Why do it this way? You'll see in class.

Then we'll learn something really cool... how to place a special object called the ActiveX Calendar Control in our form. This will allow you to pick a date from a calendar and store that date in your table.

We'll make a Command Button next to open up the Extended Customer Form right from our Customer Form, so that we can see just the data for the currently open customer. No big deal - we've done this before when we were making our Contacts form, but this is a good review PLUS I'll show you how you can force this to be a one-to-one relationship and only have one Extended Customer data record for each customer record.

I'll show you how to use Hyperlink fields in your tables and forms so that you can type in a web page, click on it, and your web browser is automatically launched and you're taken right to that page.

Here comes a fun lesson... We'll learn how to create Tab Controls. You've seen them before (like if you click on Tools > Options in any Microsoft Office program like Word, Excel, or Access). Well now you'll learn how to put Tabs in your own Access Forms to save space and logically group related information.

Next we'll study Bound and Unbound Object Frames. We've seen before how to put a picture in an OLE field. We did that with our employee table and form. Now, I'll show you a few more tricks with Bound Object Frames to store pictures in your database. I'll also teach you how to Link to images on your hard drive from your database so you can still have the image available, but not waste space in your tables.

I'll also show you how you can use Unbound Object Frames to either store information directly in your forms, OR link to external data files such as Word documents or Excel spreadsheets so that your database users have quick access to commonly used files.

Finally, we'll round the course out by showing you how to add Images to your forms using the Image Control. We'll also cover the Line and Rectangle controls, Page Break Control, and more.

This is a great class if you'd like to really take your Access Forms to the next level. You'll learn how to use all of the controls in the Toolbox, and I'll teach you a lot of tips and tricks to teach you which tools to use and when.

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