Automatic Column Hider

[ryan812x]

Hi guys I'm slightly new to access and I have been working on a new database that I have built out the skeleton for and now am adding functional features to it. So far I've been able to add a decent amount of basic functions through poking around or youtube videos and tutorials. One problem that I have ran into is trying to make an automatic column hider. I'd like for it to hide the columns by the current date so that it only shows this months column for example. So if it were to change to the first of September then August's column would be hidden automatically due to the date changing over. Would anyone have any idea on how something like that would be able to be done or if it is possible? Not sure if this is the best place to post this so let me know if I should put it somewhere else thanks!

[JoeM]

It sounds like you may have a design flaw with your database.

In designing your database, you want to follow the Rules of Data Normalization (at least the first few). One says that you should not have repeating similar data going across columns (fields). So you wouldn't have separate fields for various dates. This would require you to keep updating your tables to add more fields, which shouldn't be necessary in a well-designed database. And it makes things like searches much harder (what if you wanted to search for a particular value across all the date fields? You would need to add criteria to every single date field, which is a nightmare!).

Instead of having multiple fields for the various dates, you only have a Date field, and a Value field, and then have multiple records (rows) instead of fields. Now if you need to add more dates, you do not need to add more fields, you simply add new records. And if you need to search for a particular value, you only need to put the cirtiera on one field. If you want to present the data going across, then you would use a CrossTab Query to do that.

See here for a guide on designing databases in Access and the Rules or Normalization: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...ization-basics
Databases that are not well designed often end up being very difficult to work with.