Interactive Startup form / Home page

Hi Guys

I am looking for some ideas to create interactive startup forms / Menu forms / Home Page for a project. I want to design a start up form in Access that will look like a web page ( colour pattern / Look and feel etc..)

Can you please provide some guidance and share some screenshots ?

Many Thanks

Every home page is different, depending on the particular circumstances of that project.
You need to give us more ideas about what your home page or main menu should include

Attached are screenshots of two very different startup forms.
The chances are that neither will be anything like you want ...

On the StaffHomePage, how did you make the appointments bar at the top with the blocks automatically filling the appropriate time range?

want to design a start up form in Access that will look like a web page ( colour pattern / Look and feel etc..)

Click to expand...

You can use the mouseover event in an textbox (or even an unattached label to expose a drop down list below, which when clicked on tables you to another form. You can use special characters and images instead of or with buttons. you can have marquee banners, pop up ads, pretty much whatever you want - there is plenty of inspiration out there, just needs some coding

Kronix said:

On the StaffHomePage, how did you make the appointments bar at the top with the blocks automatically filling the appropriate time range?

Click to expand...

It was fairly complex involving use of tables that contained:

• staff timetables
• times for registration and lessons

These were used to populate textboxes whose position was dependent on the time of day. Where the member of staff is free, the box is hidden.
Single click on any box opens the class list
Double click on any box opens the attendance register for that lesson.
Arrows to left/right open similar items for previous & following days

Each of the other sections is interactive in a similar way.
The form actually contains 11 subforms - not all visible at any time

It took a lot of work and a long time to get it all working perfectly ....!

Did you have to variably create the appropriate number of text boxes on the fly in VBA, along with their position and size?

It looks impressive. But I imagine so many complex subforms is subject to severe slowdowns.

Do the arrows at the top left of each subform minimize them? Are they also movable/rearrangeable?

@Kronix

Did you have to variably create the appropriate number of text boxes on the fly in VBA, along with their position and size?

Click to expand...

Its actually more complex than that. The database is used in a number of schools, each having a different day structure & times
e.g. some have 4 periods per day & 2 registration sessions, others have 7 lessons & 1 registration etc.
So there are actually 10 period blocks & 2 registration blocks.
The start/end times are stored in a separate table. The block positions and widths depend on these values.
Many schools use a 2 week calendar so that has to be taken into account
Similarly non-teaching days when there are no lessons

This is the top form in design view - its tiny due to the resizing code

It looks impressive. But I imagine so many complex subforms is subject to severe slowdowns.

Click to expand...

Thanks - it does work well
The form gives quick access to almost all features of the program so its very useful.
Each subform is filtered to the data for the specific member of staff apart from the calendar section.
Typically it takes less than 2 seconds to load on a school network which is just about acceptable for most users. Once loaded it stays open but hidden when the user leaves to do other tasks. This means it can be reopened instantly
However, anyone who finds that the initial load time too slow has the option of disabling the form and using the main menu form instead

There are actually 4 versions of the form - tutors, pastoral staff, leadership team , other staff
The original version had all versions in one form with 22 subforms
That took around 7 seconds to load which was too slow ...so I scrapped that

The form also resizes to fit the screen display so each subform has to be scaled up as well...

Do the arrows at the top left of each subform minimize them? Are they also movable/rearrangeable?

Click to expand...

The up arrows at the top left open a full screen version of that subform with additional information
The subforms aren't rearrangable though that was the original plan - one step too far in terms of development time. Nobody has ever asked for that feature to be added

If you want still more information, see the attached PDF or look at this video on You Tube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqYuubcrRpc

The video was done BEFORE I added the Day Classes subform so it doesn't include that bit. I never got around to updating it as very few staff watched the video - either through lack of time or they didn't need to do so

Alternatively you COULD download the free DEMO version from my website and try it out ...

Thanks Ridders, Have you designed logos for your projects? I have to design one for "lead management system" but can't think of any. I was trying to use powerpoint to design a logo but not sure what image I should put in for this particular project.

Have you got any icons/logos that you can share? Many Thanks.

Derek said:

Thanks Ridders, Have you designed logos for your projects? I have to design one for "lead management system" but can't think of any. I was trying to use powerpoint to design a logo but not sure what image I should put in for this particular project.

Have you got any icons/logos that you can share? Many Thanks.

Click to expand...

Yes to the first question. Sorry but no to the second one.
There are plenty of sites online that you can use to obtain icons and png files for logos.

I am looking for similar functionality so that users see the textbox but when they hover mouse on it then the drop down options appear . So look wise its a textbox and not a dop down box but as I said mousehover event brings all the options visible to users.

Can anyone please help me in this?
Thanks

CJ_London said:

You can use the mouseover event in an textbox (or even an unattached label to expose a drop down list below, which when clicked on tables you to another form. You can use special characters and images instead of or with buttons. you can have marquee banners, pop up ads, pretty much whatever you want - there is plenty of inspiration out there, just needs some coding

Click to expand...

Along with this can we customize the message boxes ? e.g "The record has been saved " so instead of Access default message boxes use customized boxes .

look wise its a textbox and not a dop down box but as I said mousehover event brings all the options visible to users

Click to expand...

1. create an unbound listbox control - I'll call it lstChoice
2. populate with your list of options
3. move the related label to above the lstChoice- ensure bottom of label is touching top of lstChoice
4. set the height of lstChoice to 0

5. in the lstChoice mousemove event put something like

if lstChoice.height=0 then lstChoice.height=3000 '(whatever height you want in twips - 567 twips=1cm)

6. in the section (header/footer/etc) mousemove event put

if lstChoice.height=3000 then lstChoice.height=0

don't forget to put some code in the lstChoice afterupdate event to take selected action - open form, run a report, whatever

I don't understand what you mean by step 6?

CJ_London said:

1. create an unbound listbox control - I'll call it lstChoice
2. populate with your list of options
3. move the related label to above the lstChoice- ensure bottom of label is touching top of lstChoice
4. set the height of lstChoice to 0

5. in the lstChoice mousemove event put something like

if lstChoice.height=0 then lstChoice.height=3000 '(whatever height you want in twips - 567 twips=1cm)

6. in the section (header/footer/etc) mousemove event put

if lstChoice.height=3000 then lstChoice.height=0

don't forget to put some code in the lstChoice afterupdate event to take selected action - open form, run a report, whatever

Click to expand...

forms have sections- header, footer, detail

use whichever section you have the listbox

ok, I have tried that but i want it to work in a different way. Suppose there are few values in the listbox when the user choose one value then it should appear in the listbox but definetely no scrollbars in it .

not sure what you mean. If you mean you don't want the scrollbar to appear, increase the 3000 value until it disappears

if you mean you want a height calculated based on the number of rows to appear, you will need to try and determine the row height. It is not an easy calculation since it is dependant on the font size/weight etc. but start with something like

lstChoice.height=250*lstChoice.listcount

and adjust the 250 until you get it right

If this does not answer your question, please start a new thread with a title specific to your requirement since this is now off topic from the thread title

Thanks CJ_London, I will start a new thread as still I have few questions about it.