Chapter 9. User Interface

No matter how much you do behind the scenes to create a solid and robust application, the users of your application see only your user interface. Certainly, perfecting the database and application design is crucial—but once that's done, it pays to devote considerable time to designing a user interface that is workable, aesthetically pleasing, and helps the users get their work done. By implementing the ideas and techniques in this chapter, you'll be on your way to creating an interface that has ease of use and productivity written all over it.

You'll learn how to take full advantage of special keystrokes to help users navigate through a complex application. You'll also learn how to create forms that have no menus or toolbars and how to create a map-based interface that lets users navigate by pointing to and clicking on various parts of a map.

Next, you'll learn how to ease data-entry pain with forms that let users mark their place while they peruse other records, and how to add shortcut menus to forms. You'll also see how you can create forms that carry data forward from record to record, how to hide complexity from your users with a dialog that expands on request to reveal complex options, and how to use a combo box not just to select from a list, but also to maintain that list with new entries as they are needed.

Finally, you'll learn how to create and use two generic, reusable components: a pop-up calendar form for entering dates that makes use of an ActiveX control, and a custom-built status meter form complete with an optional Cancel button.

Several of the examples in this chapter take advantage of the DAO type library, rather than the default ADO library used by Access 2002 and Access 2003. Even though it's less "modern," DAO provides greater functionality, and generally better performance. In addition, using DAO makes it possible for these demonstrations to work in earlier versions of Access. If you want to try these techniques in your own applications, make sure you add the DAO reference to your project using the Tools References menu item from within VBA—it won't be added by default.