Question

On a form in an Access application, I have a pair of cascading combo-boxes: one unbound (Source) and one Bound (Information, bound to long InformationID). Source is used to narrow down the choices available in Information, which is a mandatory field. There is one more mandatory field on the form: Title.

To ensure the user makes the right choices for the combos, and for use when reviewing each record after creation, I need to display on the form read-only information associated with the value currently selected in each combo. This includes some rich text memo fields. This information is not part of the record-source for the form (as to include it would make the record-set un-updateable, not to mention impact performance as there’s potentially a lot of rich text memos therein). It is possible for a user to double-click on one of these limited-size read-only memo fields to bring up a pop-up form that will display more of the text at once.

I first tried defining the combos to include multiple hidden columns with the necessary data in them, and used these hidden columns in formulae in the read-only fields on the form. This truncated the rich text memo fields. No-go.

I then tried using sub-forms (without borders, so they look like part of the form) linked to the combos to display the data. This works, but has the side-effect that if the user clicks on a field inside the sub-form they may get a message telling them that the other mandatory field on the main form hasn’t been completed (because moving the focus to the sub-form tries to save the main form). However, if they click on some other field in the main form, they won’t get the same error in the same circumstances. Inconsistent, and likely to drive the users crazy (it’s driving me crazy during testing). Again, no-go.

Is there another technique for doing this that will allow me to display the full rich-text fields but avoid the disadvantages of sub-forms?

Answer 1

It sounds like you want your users to view but not edit the associated rich text memo content. In the After Update event of the Information combo box, use DLookup() to retrieve the memo field content and load that rich text into a text box.

Assuming InformationID also exists in the table which contains the memo field, and is numeric data type …

Me.txtDetails = DLookup("memo_field", "table_name", _
    "InformationID = " & Me.cboInformation)

If InformationID is text, add quotes in the last piece of that DLookup expression.

    "InformationID = '" & Me.cboInformation & "'")

You can do the same thing in the form’s On Current event so the user may see those details as she navigates between records.