Form Position Option

  • Thread starter Thread starter NevilleT
  • Start date Start date
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NevilleT

This shouldn't be so hard. So far I have been struggling for a day on it. I
want to provide an option to users to position a forms in either the top left
hand corner of their Access Window or in the centre of their Access window.
The users can make a selection on their switchboard depending on the screen
resolution they are using. For example, on 1280 x 1024 the screen would be
in the middle of their Access window. on a lower resolution - 1024 x 768 or
even 800 x 600 it is in the top left. Scrolling may be required to see the
whole screen on the rare monitor that is 800 x 600 .

To position at the top left is simple.
DoCmd.MoveSize 0, 0

To make this work the AutoCenter property needs to be set to No. I can only
reset AutoCentre to Yes in design mode. For this reason I cannot change the
AutoCenter property using VBA if the user selects "Form Centred".

I thought that since I know the form size in cms or twips, if I can
calculate the size of the Access Window, I can calculate where to position
the form using MoveSize. There is still the issue of regional settings as I
see MoveSize help tells me.
"Each measurement is in inches or centimeters, depending on the regional
settings in Windows Control Panel."

So far I have been Googleing the issue for hours and playing with pixels to
twips conversion (unsuccessfully). Stephen Lebans has a lot of related
information but I have not been able to pull the threads together. Can
anyone point me in the right direction? Maybe it is all just too hard and I
should forget it.
 
There are 1440 twips per inch, but being one of those damn yanks, I know
nothing of cm. But, I do know how to calculate furlongs per fortnight :)
 
NevilleT said:
This shouldn't be so hard. So far I have been struggling for a day on it.
I
want to provide an option to users to position a forms in either the top
left
hand corner of their Access Window or in the centre of their Access
window.
The users can make a selection on their switchboard depending on the
screen
resolution they are using. For example, on 1280 x 1024 the screen would
be
in the middle of their Access window. on a lower resolution - 1024 x 768
or
even 800 x 600 it is in the top left. Scrolling may be required to see
the
whole screen on the rare monitor that is 800 x 600 .

To position at the top left is simple.
DoCmd.MoveSize 0, 0

To make this work the AutoCenter property needs to be set to No. I can
only
reset AutoCentre to Yes in design mode. For this reason I cannot change
the
AutoCenter property using VBA if the user selects "Form Centred".

I thought that since I know the form size in cms or twips, if I can
calculate the size of the Access Window, I can calculate where to position
the form using MoveSize. There is still the issue of regional settings as
I
see MoveSize help tells me.
"Each measurement is in inches or centimeters, depending on the regional
settings in Windows Control Panel."

So far I have been Googleing the issue for hours and playing with pixels
to
twips conversion (unsuccessfully). Stephen Lebans has a lot of related
information but I have not been able to pull the threads together. Can
anyone point me in the right direction? Maybe it is all just too hard and
I
should forget it.
Click to expand...


I have used Nicole Calinoiu's clFormWindow class to do this sort of thing.
It makes it quite easy.

http://www.mvps.org/access/forms/frm0042.htm
Forms: Move and Resize form windows from code
 
Hi Dirk

Thanks for your quick reply. I am a bit out of my depth here with classes.
I suspect I can get it to work without necessarily understanding it all. I
went to the site, cut and pasted the code into a module and called the module
clFormWindow. Did a compile to see if it was OK and came up with an error

"A module is not a valid type" on the line
Public Property Get Parent() As clFormWindow
 
NevilleT said:
Hi Dirk

Thanks for your quick reply. I am a bit out of my depth here with
classes.
I suspect I can get it to work without necessarily understanding it all.
I
went to the site, cut and pasted the code into a module and called the
module
clFormWindow. Did a compile to see if it was OK and came up with an error

"A module is not a valid type" on the line
Public Property Get Parent() As clFormWindow
Click to expand...


That's because you saved it as a standard module, not a class module.
Delete that module, then in Access, click Insert -> Class Module, paste the
code into the new class module that will be created, and save the module as
"clFormWindow".
 
Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! It was so easy after you put me onto this
class module. Just to complete the post, after inserting the class module, I
created code in a module as below.

' Center or Top Left
If Forms!frmTitlePage!chkCentre = True Then
DoCmd.MoveSize 0, 0
Else
subFormCentre (strFormName)
End If

frmTitlePage is the switchboard and chkCentre is a checkbox they tick to
place a form at the top left hand corner. subFormCentre is:

Public Sub subFormCentre(ByVal strFormName As String)
Dim fwForm As New clFormWindow
Const SMALL_OFFSET = 5 'Used to position window slightly away from the
Access MDI window border _
in order to avoid appearance of the Access window
vertical scroll bar.
On Error GoTo Error_subFormCentre

With fwForm
.hWnd = Forms(strFormName).hWnd
.Top = (.Parent.Height - .Height) / 2
.Left = (.Parent.Width - .Width - SMALL_OFFSET) / 2
End With

Set fwForm = Nothing

Exit_subFormCentre:
On Error GoTo 0
Exit Sub

Error_subFormCentre:
MsgBox "An unexpected situation arose in your program." & funCrLf & _
"Please write down the following details:" & funCrLf & funCrLf & _
"Module Name: modPACommon" & funCrLf & _
"Type: Module" & funCrLf & _
"Calling Procedure: subFormCentre" & funCrLf & _
"Error Number: " & Err.Number & funCrLf & _
"Error Descritption: " & Err.Description

Resume Exit_subFormCentre

End Sub

Thanks again Dirk. That hurdle took me about a day and a half to get over.
 
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