Detect When Two Related Fields are Dirty

[caddcop]

I have a form for entering Staff Names and what I am trying to do, is only enable the Save Record button once both a first and last name are entered.
I created a Form_Dirty sub and in it, I was checking the value of the two text boxes. If both were not Null then I'd enable the save button. This however only works when both are not null and when they are initially being entered, only one is non-null when the OnDirty event is run.
So I tried using the Dirty Event in each text box and having it call the Form_Dirty procedure. However, the second text box to be filled is still Null when its OnDirty event fires, so the buttons still do not enable.
I tried using AfterUpdate instead of OnDirty, for the text boxes, but those events don't fire until the user has exited both text boxes.


I was hoping for something that could detect that one text box was edited and that the other was in a state of being edited and at that point, enable the save Button.

[ketbdnetbp]

Have you tried the BeforeUpdate event as this will allow you to cancel the update when the conditions you need are not met?

Secondly, what about adding a combo box to your form whose recordsource is the table or query that contains the staff names and when a selection is made the text boxes are both populated.

All the best,


Jim

[caddcop]

Since this is the form used to add new staff, there is no way to select users from a table.
Anyway, I figured out my solution.
For each of the two fields I created a Dirty procedure, where it tests to confirm that it is Dirty and the other field is not null. When that is true, it enables the Save button.
Then, in the Form Dirty procedure I check that the two other fields are not null and enable the Save record button there. Finally, since I disable all form navigation button when a form is dirty, I also call my custom dirtyForm procedure that executes a number of things I want done to change the interface while a record is in an edited state.
Just FYI, I also have a cleanForm module that I run when the form is no longer Dirty to restore all of the items that dirtyForm disables. This is run by the Form current module, save record button, the undo edit button and also by a Form Keypress module to detect the user pressing the esc key.