Conditional Formatting Bug: Workaround?

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Guest

Hi. I have a subform, which is displayed as a datasheet. I would love to use conditional formatting for several of the columns, but for some reason, if there are more than 10 or so records in the subform, I run into the endless recalc loop issue

I've tried all of the suggestions in the MS KBKB555033, but since the form is a subform, the Form_Activate event does not fire all the time. I've removed all calculated fields from the form as well, but without success

I was wondering if setting up the conditional formatting programmatically might be a workaround (as opposed to using the conditional formatting gui)? It's such a neat idea for a feature, it's a shame it has this bug

Interestingly enough, if I open the subform (as a datasheet) independently of the parent form, the recalc does not appear to occur, at least not as severely

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated

Thanks

TomT
 
Hi Tom,

From your description, I understood that you would like to find a
resolution to KB555033's known issue. Have I understood you? If there is
anything I misunderstood ,please feel free to let me know :)

Which version of Access you are using? Based on my knowledge, we have a
hotfix package that contains a few fixes for Access 2003, all of these will
be publically available in Access 2003 Service Pack 1. This particular fix
contains a fixes for a few different issues, and this one for Conditional
Formatting is one of the ones that was included in it. You could get more
descriptions about Pre-Office 2003 SP-1 release from the following document
Access 2003 hotfix package: March 17, 2004
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=837003

To obtain this hotfix, you need to contact a Microsoft Support Professional
through Microsoft Product Support Services. You can contact Microsoft
Product Support directly to discuss additional support options you may have
available, by contacting us at 1-(800)936-5800 or by choosing one of the
options listed at
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=sz;en-us;top. Since it is
only a hotfix request, it will be a free service request.

Also, I will be glad to help you get that hotfix. You may send email to
(remove "online." from this no Spam email address):
mailto:[email protected] with the following information,

Put "HotFix Request" in the subject line
Issue ID : 22785285
KB Article Number: 837003
e-mail address
First Name
Last Name
Phone Number
Company Name (if any)

Hope this helps and if you have any questions or concerns, don't hesitate
to let me know. We are here to be of assistance!

Sincerely yours,

Michael Cheng
Microsoft Online Support
***********************************************************
Get Secure! - www.microsoft.com/security
This posting is provided "as is" with no warranties and confers no rights.
Please reply to newsgroups only, many thanks.
 
Michael,

Thanks for your assistance. As you suggested, I have sent an email to the address you posted, along with the information required.

Will there be instructions as to how to distribute this to our users?

Thanks again,

Tom
 
Hi Tom,

Thanks for your update!

I am sorry to say that I miss some important things, You have to email me
again with your MSDN Subscriber ID, without which I could not direct you to
PSS. I have emailed you for it and waiting for your reply for it. I am so
sorry for the inconvenience again :)

For distribution issue, I am not very sure about it, I think you could ask
PSS directly

Thank you for your patience and cooperation. If you have any questions or
concerns, don't hesitate to let me know.

Sincerely yours,

Michael Cheng
Microsoft Online Support
***********************************************************
Get Secure! - www.microsoft.com/security
This posting is provided "as is" with no warranties and confers no rights.
Please reply to newsgroups only, many thanks.
 
Michael,

I obtained the hotfix today (although the KB related to it only mentions a problem importing an Excel spreadsheet, not conditional formatting).

I applied the hotfix to a system experiencing the conditional formatting loop bug, and the problem remained unchanged.

I'm hoping there is some resolution to this, as my company just purchased a large number of Office 2003 licenses, and one of the influencing factors in this purchase was the functionality of conditional formatting.

BTW, I did try to see if implementing the formatting programmatically (instead of thru the gui) would make a difference, and unfortunately it did not.

Thanks for your continued assistance,

Tom
 
Hi Tom,

I learnt that you met with the known issue of conditional formatting on your continuous form.

As documented in the following KB, we can change the control's property for the active control, using the
conditional formatting.

208961 ACC2000: Changing Control Properties Affects All Records in a Form
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=208961

However, a single set of property settings for each control is stored on the form. In order for a control to
appear different from record to record on a form, Microsoft Access would have to store and maintain
property settings for each control for every record in the form. For example, if a control has approximately 50
property settings, a form with 1000 records would need to maintain 50,000 property settings. Maintaining this
much information for controls would severely impact performance.

This may cause the following known issue documented in 555033 article as below:

Conditional Formatting:
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=555033

I noticed that you had applied the solution, but failed to suppress the problem as you had the conditional
formatting on the subform. I appreciated your efforts to try this solution. Also, I have reproduced the issue
with the repro steps in 555033 article. However, I can solve the problem with the provided solution.

So, could you please take additional time to have a retry of the solution step by step. Plus, if you refer to the
control on the subform from within the mainform, you should use ! (Exclamation Mark) instead of . (Dot). The
syntax looks like: Forms![<main form name>]![<subform control name>].Form![<control name>]

See the following KB 209099 for more information:

209099 ACC2000: How to Refer to a Control on a Subform or Subreport
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=209099

Tom, please let us know if you can successfully solve the problem after taking my suggestion and re-apply
the solution in the 555033 article. If there is any headway on your side, please feel free to let us know. We
are here willing to be of assistance.

Thank you,

Billy Yao
Microsoft Online Support
 
Billy

Thanks for your response. Do I gather from your reference to KB208961 that using conditional formatting on a continous form (or datasheet) would not be a good idea, if there are a large number of records

I'm trying to use this in a quoting system, where in most cases there are no more than 100 records (line items)

I am currently testing this again, and will get back to you with the results

Thanks again

Tom
 
Hi Tom,

How about your test result? If you would like additional assistance or
information regarding this particular issue, don't hesitate to let me know.
We appreciate your patience and look forward to hearing from you!

Sincerely yours,

Michael Cheng
Microsoft Online Support
***********************************************************
Get Secure! - www.microsoft.com/security
This posting is provided "as is" with no warranties and confers no rights.
Please reply to newsgroups only, many thanks.
 
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