Pseudo record selector in continuous sub form?

[twgonder]

I've got a template form that has all the command buttons that are needed for navigation and save/exit/copy/delete on a form.
I just got started with a complicated continuous-sub form (my first) and for the moment I'm using Record Selector Yes,
because without it I'm lost as to which row/record is active (the "row" is actually four lines of textboxes deep).
The record selector is great in knowing which record is active but it's save/delete/move features conflict with my navigation command buttons and the code behind them.

I'm thinking a similar thin label with the verticle word "Active" might do the trick, and the other rows shown with a grayed-out label.
But so far, if I set a label color or text, it gets applied to all the rows, as they all share the same properties.

Got a trick to find out which row is active and set the label property for just that row/record?

(And for those that have been giving some attention to my "silly" questions, you can see here some of your great suggestions being used.)

[ranman256]

The black arrow on the record selector tells you the active record.

[CJ_London]

I think better to use conditional formatting
Have a hidden text box in the header called say txtCurrent

In the form current event put something like
txtCurrent=me.pk

then use conditional formatting to color one or more controls with

expression is ……[txtcurrent]=me.pk

[twgonder]

That sounds like a good idea (it's got my brain working in circles), I think. I'm not sure what you mean by me.pk (primary key?) and why the header.
I was thinking of a label, because I have translation in a form for labels, but again, it would apply to all the labels for each row.
I also don't have a primary key for the field until the save button is pressed, then it gets an ID (which is a hidden field already in the form).
The user starts with an empty sub-form, and presses the new button to start a record, enters the data, then presses save.
I'll go play with the idea and see if I can make some sense of it.

[CJ_London]

labels do not have conditional formatting

pk=primary key

you can create a textbox in the detail section, sized to the size of your detail section and sent to back with enabled =false and locked =true and apply conditional formatting to that

Because of your non standard way of doing things, perhaps use the whatever it is that you eventually store as a PK, use that and set its default value to "" if its a string or perhaps -1 if it is a number - you can use the format property of the control to hide negative numbers - pretty sure that has been covered with you in the past but the format would be something like 0;""

Note that null=null won't work, which is why you have to have a value

[twgonder]

I'm a bit baffeled by this subform. I was testing, watching things in the debugger, and when the main form is started, the subform, which has five records tied to the parent record, goes to the Sub Form_Current() three times and the Sub Form_BeforeUpdate two times before the form appears, inbetween the first to Sub Form_Current().

In addition, just moving the scroll bar causes the Form_BeforeUpdate to trigger.

I will test on a more simple and "standard" design to see if it happens there too.

On top of that, the conditions to allow for the conditional format (if I did it right) seem to exist (the two highlighted textboxesfields are equal), but the formatting isn't being done. Very strange.





tbxn_CurrRecDt is in the form header and has a time/date
tbxn_CurrRec is bound to a date field in the record
Formatting should change the background color to turquoise when they are equal if I understand the rule correctly.

[Welshgasman]

Subforms load before mainform?

Strange to you, and yes I dare say you are you are going to say illogical, but that is what they do.
You need to work with it. Same with events. A current event executes when a form loads, perhaps more than once. I have seen that in my F8 walkthrough as well.

[CJ_London]

See this example. It’s for a multi select form, but easy enough to modify to next be current selection

https://www.access-programmers.co.uk...t-form.289116/

[twgonder]

Subforms load before mainform? <img src="images/smilies/frown.png" border="0" alt="" title="Frown" smilieid="11" class="inlineimg"><br>
<br>
Strange to you, ...

<br>

Dang, this forum software did it to me again. It logged me out after just a bit of time, then let me type in my post, and turned it to crap after I had to log back in.
And while they're at it, maybe they can fix that you can't select and replace text?

Here's a strange one to play with. I went back to basics to see what Access is doing.<br>A flag (date) is getting set to trigger conditional formatting on the last column of the sub data area. That's not working, or I'm doing it wrong.<br>If you move between parent records, then the flag gets reset with a BEFOREUPDATE even when you're just needing to get current on the record<br>AND that RESETS THE DATE FLAG!<br><br>How can we stop that?!!!<br>How do we get the conditional formatting to work (I'm just looking to get the background color set for the text box).

SimpleParChild.accdb

[CJ_London]

How do we get the conditional formatting to work

You have examples so confident you can work it out.

[twgonder]

See this example. It’s for a multi select form, but easy enough to modify to next be current selection

https://www.access-programmers.co.uk...t-form.289116/

A BIG thanks for posting this multi select form!
I've been waylaid with some other projects and just got back to this one.
It took me a bit, but I got what I wanted to work.
A little stumbling block was trying to set the background color for the "altback" textbox to transparent.
Also, the altback text box tends to blank out the record area, so a simple set focus to first input field bypasses this when the altback gets focus.

[CJ_London]

A little stumbling block was trying to set the background color for the "altback" textbox to transparent.

transparent isn't a colour choice, it's a different property - for colour, set it to the same colour as the detail section

Also, the altback text box tends to blank out the record area

Not sure what this means - the altback text box needs to be 'sent to back' on the Arrange ribbon