combo box selection navigation

  • Thread starter Thread starter Andy
  • Start date Start date
A

Andy

Using Access 2003...

I have a form with a combo box bound to a lookup table
for USA state values (AK, AL, AR, etc).

I want to allow user to press "A" (or any letter) and
jump to the first instance of "A" on the list & then to
the next, etc. with each "A" keypress until they reach
the one they want & then hit enter to select it.

Currently the first keypress jumps to the first state
beginning with that letter but a 2nd keypress of "A" just
puts "AA" in the field which of course is invalid.

Suppose I'd also need to handle an invalid letter press
("X" for example).

BTW, what is this feature called? I see this behavior
many places, but can't find out how to do it after hours
of google.

Andy
 
Andy, Open the form in design mode. Double-click the combo-box to launch
the properties window. Click the data tab. Set the Auto Expand to yes.
 
Reggie:
This property was already set to "yes". Tried "no" - see
no difference in behavior.

What am I missing?

Andy
 
Andy, I've seen this work on the web and when I place a combo box on one of
my MS Frontpage pages, however not sure how to accomplish this in Access.
Maybe someone else knows of a way. Sorry.
 
AFAIK, HTML comboboxes work differently than Access comboboxes. With an HTML
combobox, you get the behaviour you describe: that you can hit the A key
three times and it'll take you to the 3rd A entry. In Access, three As will
be treated as AAA. You can limit your combobox so that it won't accept AAA
unless it's in the list, but I don't believe you can change how it treats 3
As.
 
Well, that seems consistent with what I've seen.

Also note that an Access list box has the default
behavior I want but it doesn't support the dropdown
function, so with a .1667 high 8pt font list box, you get
those ugly little up & down arrows!

urrgggg!

Web page input forms that use State code drop down boxes
almost always have the behavior I'm looking for in my
Access object.

Any other ideas?

Andy
 
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