Interactive map of 1000 seats

[chacham]

[I have a longer post on the Microsoft Forums. But this forum comes up on top on Google, and seems to be used frequently. I hope it is okay to cross post like this.]



The requirement is to allow multiple rooms (4 or 5, right now) with up to 1000 seats each, show readable names (and possibly other information) on each, and be interactive, that is, receptive to a click. One second thought, the information shown can also be shortened to an acronym or symbol, with a popup, right-click, sidebar, or the like, showing the information in detail.

My first thought is to use one button per seat. I want to know if this is feasible and practical, or if there is a better way to implement an interactive map.
On the idea of buttons, does Access support buttons arrays or the like?

[ranman256]

access can show custom form with 1000 combo boxes. (not very practical.)
otherwise
youd need visual basic to create a web page or executable frontend to draw your seats.

[chacham]

While the seat arrangement can change, and indeed one of the rooms changed last year (they turned it on its side), the arrangements are purportedly pretty static. Currently, they use an Excel sheet, and another program to export the data from the database to the sheet.

If the form were static, but with clear instructions of how to change it if required, it should be alright.

[Bulzie]

Do the seats in the rooms have to be in a specific setup or can they just be rows? Maybe give some examples of the type of data you need to store and show. So you need to see the 1000 seats on the form or can you have 1 combo box that you select a specific seat and then it displays the data on the screen to view or change?

Maybe check out this db from another thread posted by Minty, it is an interactive floorplan that you might could use.
https://access-programmers.co.uk/for...d.php?t=228040

[chacham]

The ability to see the entire map is desired. It helps them make seating decisions.

It must be a specific setup. Seat placement with regard to other seats and objects is important.

That other thread looks very interesting. I think i have to read that now. Thank you!

[orange]

Here's another link re tables/reservations from ChrisO ( a very knowledgeable and detailed poster who is now deceased)
https://access-programmers.co.uk/for...884#post812884

He gives an example in Post#8.

[CJ_London]

the maximum number of controls that can be on a form is 754 - and that is over the life of the form. See this link https://support.office.com/en-us/art...9-ea9dff1fa854

However it can be overcome by use of subforms, e.g. 4 each with 250 controls - but see that something similar has been suggested on the other thread.

[chacham]

Ooh, thank you for pointing out that limitation. That is very helpful. Based on the other thread, i am wondering if it could just color the background of the form or some object as a sort of map. Is there a way to tell where on a form or control the mouse was clicked? I don't think that should be too hard to figure out which "seat" was then clicked.

[CJ_London]

the other thread showed how to do it. but you could load an image to the form background, or use an image control to display the layout of the room/theatre/whatever, but you will then also need some record(s) to store the coordinates of each seat/object to map the mouse location against. With regards knowing where on a form the mouse was clicked, check out the mouseup/down/move events which return the mouse coordinates.

[chacham]

I saw the method, but i didn't ant to complicate things with subforms if i did not have to. Ultimately, someone else must maintain it, so the more basic the better.

you could load an image to the form background, or use an image control to display the layout of the room/theatre/whatever, but you will then also need some record(s) to store the coordinates of each seat/object to map the mouse location against. With regards knowing where on a form the mouse was clicked, check out the mouseup/down/move events which return the mouse coordinates.

Ooh! That sounds exciting.

If the image has all the seats as the same size, two simple calculations (dividing each coordinate by size) ought to make an x,y seat, which can be matched to a seat number via a 3-column table. I wonder though, if instead of an image, can the background be colored by coordinate? Or would that require an image? The ability to change colors of a particular seat might be helpful for a quick glance of which seats are occupied, or other information.

[CJ_London]

if instead of an image, can the background be colored by coordinate? Or would that require an image? The ability to change colors of a particular seat might be helpful for a quick glance of which seats are occupied, or other information.

No, cannot be coloured by coordinate. change colour of seats will require individual controls.

You haven't really explained what you want your form to look like. Realistically, with a screen say 50cm wide by 30cm high, to display 1000 seats would require 25 rows of 40 seats, each 1cm square.

if the layout is simplistic - effectively a grid, you could use a continuous form to display 50 controls. To populate the form I would suggest you use a crosstab query, but again, depends how you are storing the data. I have something similar for a year planner form - events are stored vertically in a table (on record per event) and 'crosstabed' to one row per month and controls are coloured based on what activity is taking place on a given day. Hovering over the control provides more information.

This is my last post for the next few weeks so I won't be able to respond again, but good luck with your project

[chacham]

Thank you for responding while you could!

A continuous form sounds interesting, and the hovering hint is probably the best idea.

If there are 50 controls, what would be an easy way to handle all of them? Is there a sort of array? Or would event call it's own routine, which would then call a single routine (for each event type) passing an id?

[aytee111]

In both of the threads that you have posted, there have been many and varied suggestions made, many different options of how to handle this. I suggest that you select which would be the best and then come back and ask for assistance.

All methods will require manual handling of each seat in VBA, but it could be simplified by naming them "Seat1, Seat2," etc so that code can be written once only.

[chacham]

Ideally, i like the idea here of using a background image to show the map and the mouse-click to see which seat was clicked. Although, the continuous form is intriguing, and might be easier to code. I am curious for thoughts on those.

The other thread had subforms, and i am not sure i want to add that complexity (I am assuming that is more complex) to code someone else is going to maintain.

[aytee111]

A subform is just another form, so no need to worry about additional complexity if you use one, only very slight differences.

Did you look at the links on posts # 4 & 6? Having the work and thought already done for you.

An image is just a picture, each seat will still need its own handling.