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  1. #1
    haggis999 is offline Advanced Beginner
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    Question Can you create an Access 2016 app that avoids use of the Access application window?

    I have just upgraded from Access 2007 to Access 2016 and was shocked to find that the only valid Office Themes for Access 2016 are 'Colorful' and 'White', both of which have a bright white application window background. I hate having my retina burned in this manner, but am unaware of any solution at present. My biggest Access application uses several forms whose backgrounds were designed to blend with the grey application window background I had in Access 2007 (using a very restricted command line at the top of the window). It all looks horrible with the new white Access window background.

    This has prompted me to wonder if there is a way to completely hide the Access 2016 application window and only display Access forms to the user. Is this possible?

  2. #2
    isladogs's Avatar
    isladogs is offline MVP / VIP
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    Yes.
    Obviously you could just maximise the forms so the bright white background isn't visible.

    You can also hide the Access database window completely
    For example see this demo I posted at another forum:
    https://www.access-programmers.co.uk...d.php?t=293584

  3. #3
    haggis999 is offline Advanced Beginner
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    Maximising the forms is not a good solution, as my app is designed to display two or three forms simultaneously.

    Many thanks for your link to your example of a fully hidden Access database window. That appears to be exactly what I was looking for. I will now check this out in more detail to see how easy it is for me to implement.

  4. #4
    isladogs's Avatar
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    It's not hard but if you have any trouble send me a PM or email me

    However the idea means just one form can be shown ....

  5. #5
    haggis999 is offline Advanced Beginner
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    In addition to only allowing one form at a time, your solution also appears to prevent the form from being dragged to a different position on screen. Is that correct?

  6. #6
    isladogs's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by haggis999 View Post
    In addition to only allowing one form at a time, your solution also appears to prevent the form from being dragged to a different position on screen. Is that correct?
    The form has to be a popup - hence only one form can be visible

    In my example the form has no border or title bar so its centred on the screen & not moveable

    To change this, open the form in design view and change the border style from None to Thin / Sizable or Dialog.
    This will restore the title bar so it can be dragged to a new position.
    If you want, you can also restore the control box & min/max/close buttons

    One other thing: clicking the Access icom in the taskbar will restore the database window

  7. #7
    haggis999 is offline Advanced Beginner
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    It is quite a significant restriction to allow only one form at a time, as my app always has at least two forms on screen at any time (one of these is a main menu that is intended to be visible at all times). However, there are always many ways to skin a cat, so I should eventually be able to find a way to work around this restriction.

    It would save me a lot of work if Microsoft would activate the Dark Grey theme available to other Office 2016 apps. It's now 2018, so they have had plenty of time to work on this

  8. #8
    isladogs's Avatar
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    I agree that by now MS should have restored the other themes they removed for 2016.
    AFAIK All other Office apps have 4 themes

    My example db wasn't intended for a situation involving 2 or more open forms.
    I don't see any way of hiding the database window for your situation.

    In the past I also tried to write code to change the background colour.
    I failed. Perhaps others know how to do this?

  9. #9
    haggis999 is offline Advanced Beginner
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    I just had another idea about how I might be able to hide the eyeball-searing white background of Access 2016. If I created a full-screen form containing a plain box with an acceptable background colour, such as a light to mid grey, and left that open at all times, would it be easy to ensure that it always stays behind all other forms?

    EDIT: My initial experiments with this potential solution are looking promising. If the user accidentally clicks on the background, it will move focus to my new full-screen background form and thus obscure all other forms, but this issue was easily resolved using code in the Click event of the large grey box on the background form to move focus successively to all my other forms (after testing to see if they were open),

  10. #10
    isladogs's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by haggis999 View Post
    I just had another idea about how I might be able to hide the eyeball-searing white background of Access 2016. If I created a full-screen form containing a plain box with an acceptable background colour, such as a light to mid grey, and left that open at all times, would it be easy to ensure that it always stays behind all other forms?

    EDIT: My initial experiments with this potential solution are looking promising. If the user accidentally clicks on the background, it will move focus to my new full-screen background form and thus obscure all other forms, but this issue was easily resolved using code in the Click event of the large grey box on the background form to move focus successively to all my other forms (after testing to see if they were open),
    You mean something like the attached?
    Open forms 1-5 in turn. Click on the background.
    Close one or more forms randomly. Click on the background at intervals
    I suppose it works reasonably well .... but its not totally foolproof
    I found the grey background tends to shift around as other forms are opened / closed in turn

    However I expect it could be tweaked further if its that important to you
    Attached Files Attached Files
    Colin, Access MVP, Website, email
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  11. #11
    haggis999 is offline Advanced Beginner
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    I haven't had time yet to check your test code and will be out for most of the day, but I didn't have any problems with my background form moving around in any obvious manner. This may be because it is larger than my screen and has no scroll bars (or any other visible controls).

  12. #12
    isladogs's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by haggis999 View Post
    I haven't had time yet to check your test code and will be out for most of the day, but I didn't have any problems with my background form moving around in any obvious manner. This may be because it is larger than my screen and has no scroll bars (or any other visible controls).
    I expect we used a similar approach
    I also used a background MUCH bigger than the screen and removed all form items such as scroll bars, control box, record selectors etc.
    Then set focus to each open form in turn if background was clicked

    As I said it worked reasonably well but I could also get it to fail depending on the sequence I did things in

    However just made a couple of minor changes & AFAIK it now does the job perfectly
    Added a transparent box the size of the form
    Set Moveable property to No

    See attached
    Attached Files Attached Files
    Colin, Access MVP, Website, email
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  13. #13
    haggis999 is offline Advanced Beginner
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    Hi Colin,
    I had a quick look at the first version of your demo app, but couldn't trigger the misbehaviour you mentioned (though this proved to be because I didn't try hard enough). However, I did notice that you had simply given each section of the form a grey background. In my case, I had created a large box with a grey background and never modified the form background. Your second version was thus very similar to mine.

    The Moveable property of my form was set to No from the beginning. I have just tried turning that on in my own app and it then became possible in some circumstances to see beyond the edges of the background form and thus expose the white background of the Access window. I think that turning off the Moveable property of the background form is the key to making this work.

    David

  14. #14
    isladogs's Avatar
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    Hi David

    As I said, the methods were bound to be similar
    My second version had a few other tweaks that also made it work more smoothly

    However, I didn't like using an over-large background form as in some cases an application scroll bar appears even if that form is set with no scroll bars
    A better method would be to set the background form width & height to the screen dimensions when the form is loaded
    But I'll leave that to you to do if you're interested
    Colin, Access MVP, Website, email
    The more I learn, the more I know I don't know. When I don't know, I keep quiet!
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  15. #15
    haggis999 is offline Advanced Beginner
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    Quote Originally Posted by ridders52 View Post
    ... However, I didn't like using an over-large background form as in some cases an application scroll bar appears even if that form is set with no scroll bars
    A better method would be to set the background form width & height to the screen dimensions when the form is loaded
    But I'll leave that to you to do if you're interested
    That sounds like a good idea, which is probably quite easy to implement. Thanks for the suggestion.

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