Question

I’ve looked around and found a few VBA codes on how to grab the description out of the field’s “Description” box, but not how I can use that in a form’s properties.

I’d like to have a ControlTip appear with the Description of that field brought from the Description in the database, without having to rewrite all the descriptions; I’m hoping for a copy-paste bit of code that I can add to all controltips?

Something like (but obviously not)

ControlTipText:  Me.ThisControl.ThisControlFieldDescription

Anybody know of the code, or even if there is one?

EDIT:

description = Forms("frmTrials").Controls("txtBox").StatusBarText
MsgBox description

The above works to show the status bar text. However I’d like to fill “frmTrials” with the active form and “txtBox” with the currently active control; that way when the control becomes active I can put the StatusBarText into a “Description Box” text field (or the control tip, etc). I tried

description = Forms(Me).Controls(Me.ActiveControl).StatusBarText

which just threw errors at me.

Answer 1

Ended up using a text field to show the descriptions instead of the control tip. I also have an informative photo appear (if there is one so named in the given folder). I should note that I do not have any handling in place for images which are not PNG format, though I’m sure that could be added.

Public Function pushInfo(frm As Form)
'On Error Resume Next
Dim desc As String 'description from the status bar of the active control
Dim path As String 'path to image
Dim dbPath As String 'path to the database
Dim hyperPath As String 'path to hyperlink

'Take the statusbar text and push it into the description box caption.
desc = Forms(frm.Name).Controls(frm.ActiveControl.Name).StatusBarText 'Put statusbar text into var "desc"
frm.txtInfo.Caption = vbNewLine & vbNewLine & desc 'Put the text (with linefeeds) into the box
frm.lblInfo.Caption = frm.ActiveControl.Name & " Description:" 'Put the database name of the field into the label

'Set the image in the imgbox
dbPath = Left(CurrentDb.Name, InStrRev(CurrentDb.Name, "\"))   'path to the DB.
path = dbPath & "img\" 'add the img directory
path = path & frm.Name & "\" 'add the form name
path = path & frm.ActiveControl.Name 'add the control's name
path = path & ".png" 'add the jpg suffix
hyperPath = path

If (Len(Dir(path)) = 0) Then 'if the image doesn't exist (this field has no image..)
    path = dbPath & "img\GenericLogo.png" 'set to the logo
    hyperPath = ""
End If

Forms(frm.Name).Controls("imgInfo").Picture = path 'set the picture to the defined path
Forms(frm.Name).Controls("imgInfo").HyperlinkAddress = hyperPath 'set the picture to link to the file
End Function