Although you may see even Microsoft documentation refer to a form control as
a field, it really is not. Fields are elements of tables and queries. It is
a good idea to use the terminology control to differentiate it from a field.
Now, to answer your question, the . identifies a property of method of an
access defined object. The ! identifies a user defined object.
Me is a shorthand identifier that refers to the current form or report.
Proper syntax would dictate using the ! after Me to refer to a control;
however, the shorhand allows the . to be used. Most of us will use the .
because during coding, it initiates the intellesence drop down, but ! does
not.
These are all actually the same:
me.itemName
me.[itemName]
me!itemName
me![itemName]
The fully qualified syntax would be.
| The user defined name for this form
V V The user defined name for this
control
Application.Forms!FormName!ControlName
^ A form is an Access Object
The square brackets are only really needed if the name contains spaces or
other non standard characters or the name is the same as an Access reserved
word. Names should only contain letters, numbers, and the underscore and
should not be reserved words (Date, Name, Time, Description, etc.)
Another good practice is to use naming conventions that make it immediately
clear what the control is. Using a prefix on the names is a common way to do
that. Just to list a few:
cbo - Combo Box
lst - List Box
txt - Text Box
cmd - Command Button
opg - Option Group
chk - Check Box
