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Why Use Forms

Table Wizard

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Queries (1)

Queries (2)

Why Use Forms?

Forms provide a easy means of viewing and updating data. Forms can be bound to data, thus reflecting changes in the underlying data, or can be unbound such as an 'About box' or a simple message box.

Unbound forms can also display and update data through programme code. However, I shall be discussing the bound form here.

The Access Table Wizard

A simple way of creating a bound form in Access is to use the Access Table Wizard.

If the database window is obscured, minimised other windows or select it from the Window menu option, e.g. Window -> db1:database (where db1 is the name of your database).

Click on the Forms tab,   then click on the New button

The Wizard automates the process of creating Forms. Here we can see that the Wizard window has an information pane on the left, and a list box on the right; the 'AutoForm: Columnar' option is highlighted, and at the bottom of the window the 'tblPersonalDetails' has been chosen to provide the data for the Form.

Note that Forms can be based on queries as well as tables. We shall come to queries latter.

Click 'OK' and the Wizard will build the Form.

The form that the Wizard built.

If you don't like the form as it stands you can customise it quite easily. we shall look at altering the form later.

The form is showing data from the first record in the table.

There are a number of points to note:

• The caption in the title bar is set to tblPersonalDetails - the name of the table that the form is bound to.

• The labels use as captions the name of the fields they are bound to (e.g. FName).

• At the bottom of the form are the navigation buttons - a set of 5 buttons allowing the user to move between records.

• The navigation buttons are (in order): First Record, Previous Record (greyed-out because the recordset is already on the first record), Next Record, Last Record, and New Record.

• The "1" in the box between the Previous Record and the Next Record buttons indicates that we are on the first record.

• To the right of the New Record button we see "of 4", this indicates there are 4 records. This form is displaying the first of four records.

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