Microsoft Access 2010 Bible

Part III: More-Advanced Access Techniques

694

Tackling Advanced Forms Techniques

Access contains many powerful and exciting features in its forms design and user-interface capabil-

ities. As you well know, the forms in your applications are the main component of the user inter-

face. To a large extent, a user’s perception of an application’s ease of use and strength is

determined by the attractiveness and effectiveness of its user interface. You’ll be pleased to know

that Microsoft has provided Access forms with significant capabilities to control the user interface.

Many of these features have been in Access for a very long time but haven’t been discovered by

many developers.

Using the Page Number and Date/Time controls

Very often forms include the current date and time. Many developers add this information to a

form or report with an unbound text box, and Date() function to return this information to the

unbound text box. Access simplifies this process with the Date and Time commands on the

Header/Footer group on the ribbon’s Design tab (see Figure 19.5).

FIGURE 19.5

The Design tab contains essential tools when working with forms.

Figure 19.5 shows the ribbon when a form is in Design view.

When the date command is selected, Access displays the Date and Time dialog box (see Figure

19.6) to ask how you want the date and time formatted. After you make your selections and click

OK, Access adds a form header containing the date and time formatted as you requested.

FIGURE 19.6

Tell Access how you want the date to appear.