Toggling multiple "Yes/No" fields in a Table?

[HvitrEbrithil]

Hey, I'm trying to use Access to create a simple list of the TV-Shows I'm watching, with each episode and a Yes/No field to cross out if I've seen the episode or not. It's taking up unnecessary time to cross of each field individually, but I can't seem to find a way to toggle several in one action, is this possible? It seems likely that it would be.
My table looks like this:


Thanks in advance

[Beetle]

is this possible?

Yes. At the form level. You shouldn't be working directly in tables anyway (not sure if your are or not, just saying).

Multiple ways you could do it at the form level. I would probably use a multi-select list box where I could choose multiple episodes at once then run an update query based on what was chosen in the list box. Post back if you need help sorting this out.

Then again, clicking on each episode in a list box isn't a whole lot different than clicking a check box for each episode (which seems to be what you're doing now) so I may be missing something about your current process compared what you want the new process to be.

[HvitrEbrithil]

It seems unnecessary to add a form and a query for a list that actually only requires a table and a report, for my purposes anyway. What I want is something as simple as if I was to select several of the cross-off boxes, right click and choose "select all". Can't seem to find a simple way to do this, not in forms either, without having to click individually for each episode. Thanks for the feedback!

[Beetle]

Can't seem to find a simple way to do this

You can't at the table level...

not in forms either

You can at the form level, but giving advice on how to do it is dependent upon a clear understanding of the issue and I'm not sure we're there yet.

What I want is something as simple as if I was to select several of the cross-off boxes, right click and choose "select all".

So are you saying that you want to be able to select a show, and then have a single step process to mark all the episodes for that show?

That's not all that difficult (again, at the form level) but your table structure is going to play a role in that. In the screenshot from your first post I don't see a foreign key field to store the ShowID of the show that the episode is related to. Can you provide any info on your table structure?

[ssanfu]

In the screenshot from your first post I don't see a foreign key field to store the ShowID of the show that the episode is related to. Can you provide any info on your table structure?

From the screenshot, it looks like the OP has a table for each Show. There is not a field for name of the show.......

(Also... not a good idea to use special characters (?, #) in field names)

Could use an Update query, but I would use a form to be able to enter a season and a max episode number.

My $0.02......

[Beetle]

@Steve

Looks like you're right. I hadn't paid attention to the table name on the tab.

@OP

You should put the relational power of Access to work for you, not against you. You should have one table for Shows, with a related child table to store each episode for a given show. Example;

tblShows
ShowID (Primary Key)
ShowName
other fields specific to the Show

tblEpisodes
EpisodeID (Primary Key)
ShowID (Foreign Key to tblShows)
EpisodeNumber
EpisodeTitle
AirDate
other fields specific to each Episode

[HvitrEbrithil]

@Beetle

I see what you're saying, but to me it looks like this won't save me a lot of time, merely organize my show in a bit more orderly fashion. For a better understanding of my issue, the field called "Sett?" means "Seen?" in norwegian. So, as I watch each episode, I'm going to cross it out as "Seen". But most shows I put into Access have been aired for a long time, and I have seen most episodes, maybe 160 or so. It gets tiresome crossing off those 160/172 episodes one by one, so I'm looking for a way to cross several of them off, but still retain the ability to cross of one-and-one as I watch more episodes.
I am quite new at using access, and especially the "Form" function has eluded my understanding, and I fail to see the usefulness of it, though I am sure it is there, I just haven't seen its benefits yet.
For now, I am simply using a table then a report to display my table, for aesthetics.

@Steve

I also fail to see the usefulness of queries, especially when working with tables that have over 150 very similar entries. Though, I attribute that to my lack of understanding.
Why is it not a good idea to use special characters? Will the problems occur in Access, or will I only get a problem when, i.e., publishing my database to the net?

Thank you both for replying, it's appreciated

[June7]

You can run an update action to set all records as Yes then review records and uncheck those that you haven't seen. Can set the field DefaultValue property to Yes then edit if not the case for that new record. Really not much else can be done because Access is not a mind reader. Unless you have some criteria to base the mass edit on, such as "all episodes for all shows prior to a specified date should be marked as Sett Yes", just going to have to do the grunt work.

Beetle's suggestion for normalized structure is sound advice if you want to minimize design modifications. If you are aggravated by the extra effort to fix the Sett value, just wait till you have to repeatedly make changes because of poor design.

Spaces and special characters/punctuation (underscore is exception) can cause issues in code. Just good practice to avoid. As well as reserved words, like Date and Name, as full name.

[HvitrEbrithil]

Setting it as a default value, god-damnit, why didn't I think of that? Thanks a lot, June7! It will make it a lot easier to make new tables I will take your other advice into consideration as well.