WYSIWYG Form Authoring
Last week we looked at the WYSIWYG report authoring tools, this week we'll take a look at the similar forms designer. Since forms generally don't repeat like reports do this designer looks more like the old form authoring tools than the report designer did, but it is still noticeably quicker and easier to use.
WYSIWYG Form Authoring
Like the report designer, the core of the new forms authoring tools is the ability to see live data at design time. This makes it easier to tell what the user's experience of the form will be. In addition, there are some new concepts, also shared with reports, that make control layout easier. We'll go into this below. To get started with the new forms tools, though, the easiest way is to use Quick Create, just like for reports. The user simply selects the data source in the nav pane, then goes to the Create tab and selects "Form":
This creates a basic form and displays it in the design using "Layout View" or the new WYSIWYG design view. Like reports, the new form shows all of the fields in the underlying data.
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Again, just like with reports, it is simple for the user to select and delete unwanted fields from the form. In this case the user deletes the control showing the ID column, since this is created by Access's AutoNumber functionality.
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Again, much like in reports, fields can be easily moved by drag and drop. Here the user selects a field and drags it up in the form. She sees an I-bar showing where it will land when she drops it.
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After she drops the field, the other controls are moved down and it is inserted into the new space.
Quick created forms have a header area at the top, and it is easy for the user to customize this. She can simply edit the title by clicking and typing, may replace the image, or can easily add a date / time stamp. In this case, she adds the date by clicking on the ribbon.
Access displays a dialog allowing the user to select a format for the date.
And the date is inserted in the form's header (note that I shrunk the header horizontally so it would display - it will be right aligned on the form).
Working with Layouts
Access 12 has introduced a new control-grouping concept called "layouts" that provide the control flow shown above. When you move controls around then can snap into position and the other controls can reflow because the controls are all aware of their relationship to one another, and that is done through Layouts. In the image above, you can see the selector widget to the upper left of the word Title - this allows you to select the layout and to see which controls are included in that layout. Layouts make common functionality like more and resize much easier, but since they govern where controls may be moved, they may prevent you from creating certain forms. To make sure that you get the benefits of layout but don't lose flexibility, we've made it easy to edit or remove layouts as needed. To take a specific control and make it float, all that you need to do is select it and choose "Remove" from the "Layouts" chunk on the "Layout" ribbon.
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This leaves the control on the form, but simply removes it from the layout. It can then be dragged around and formatted as desired. In this case, the user drags it next to the current column of controls:
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Then grows it so that it fills the whole length of the form.
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Groups of controls can be moved to a new layout in one step as well. This makes it easy to take a long one-column form for example and make it into a wider two-column form. To do this, all that you needs to do is select the controls from the first layout and select "Stacked" from the Layouts ribbon.
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This creates a new layout and moves the controls into it:
That layout can be easily dragged around by clicking on the selector in the upper left corner. In this case, it is being moved from the bottom of the long form to the empty space on the right-hand side.
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Once the controls are in the new layout, they behave just like they did in the old one, and can easily be moved, resized, and so on. In the example below, the user is resizing the comments field to even up the column lengths.
And the final form looks like this:
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Split Forms
Access 12 has added split forms as a new form type. Split forms combine a datasheet, for bulk data viewing & entry with a single-item form for ease data manipulation. Split forms can be created from the Create ribbon in a single click, and look like this:
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Editing a split form is just like editing a regular form or datasheet, and it is simple to drag & drop controls around inside either the mail layout:
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Or between the two layouts (in this case a second layout was automatically created to provide a two-column form and to prevent scrolling in the single-item form.
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Here is the Comments field after being dropped into the righ-hand column.
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Multiple Item Forms
Multi-item forms can be created in one click as well, and also use Layouts for control positioning. Building a multi-item form creates a datasheet that can be edited, and with a "new item" row at the bottom that can be used to add new records.
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Of course it is simple to resize the columns in a multi-item form by dragging:
And is easy to move columns around, again simply by selecting them and dragging:
The I-bar at the left shows where the column will be dropped:
And of course all the other columns are moved to the right to make space after the column is dropped in.
Datasheet Forms
The "More" button in the "Forms" chunk on the Create ribbon provides the ability to create datasheets, modal dialogs, and to launch the Form Wizard that is familiar from earlier versions of Access.
Selecting "Datasheet" creates a simple grid form, similar in concept to the Multi Item form above, but closer in appearance to Excel. Again, there is a "new item" row at the bottom for adding data.
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Rich Text In Access Forms
Access 12 now provides a rich text control, and allows users to both display and edit rich text at runtime. Rich text support can be turned on through the property sheet or rich text fields can be added to a form through the Add Field task pane.
At runtime, the user can format text, either using the "floaty" (I'm sure this has another name, but I don't know what it is!) or by using the font formatting controls in the Access ribbons.
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Next Week
Next, we'll start a pass through the Sorting, Filtering, and Grouping functionality in Access 12.
