Q. Please point me to a good tutorial on using form tabs control

[Jim Jones]

Hi,

I think I have a need to use the tabs control on my forms, and am
looking for a good tutorial online, if you know of one.

Thanks,
Jim

 

[Rick Brandt]

Hi,

I think I have a need to use the tabs control on my forms, and am
looking for a good tutorial online, if you know of one.

What do you need to know? The TabControl is merely a device for
organizing lots of controls on a form when you would otherwise have too
little space on the form. They don't really affect how the form works
except for navigating between controls with the Tab and Enter key.

The most common "gotcha" is that you cannot Drag n' Drop existing controls
onto Tab Pages. You have to Cut and Paste them. You _can_ Drag n' Drop
new controls from the Toolbox bar onto Tab Pages providing the desired page
is on top and you properly position the control before releasing the mouse
button.

 

[Jim Jones]

What do you need to know? The TabControl is merely a device for
organizing lots of controls on a form when you would otherwise have too
little space on the form. They don't really affect how the form works
except for navigating between controls with the Tab and Enter key.

The most common "gotcha" is that you cannot Drag n' Drop existing controls
onto Tab Pages. You have to Cut and Paste them. You _can_ Drag n' Drop
new controls from the Toolbox bar onto Tab Pages providing the desired page
is on top and you properly position the control before releasing the mouse
button.

Hello,

I appreciate the quick response. In particular, I want to use the tab
control to tab to different subforms (2 right night now), instead of
having it set the way it is, which is subform within subform.

The current way works, but when I just try to look at the build, to
display my master/child fields on my subform withint subform, it gives
me an error, and doesnt display, BUT EVERYTHING still works ok. I
just fear that this is going to haunt me later.

The explanation of the error isnt important to me right now.
I just want to know how to implement a different subform in each tab
page, and how to make the proper links to fhe fields.

Thanks,
Jim

 

[Rick Brandt]

I appreciate the quick response. In particular, I want to use the tab
control to tab to different subforms (2 right night now), instead of
having it set the way it is, which is subform within subform.

The current way works, but when I just try to look at the build, to
display my master/child fields on my subform withint subform, it gives
me an error, and doesnt display, BUT EVERYTHING still works ok. I
just fear that this is going to haunt me later.

The explanation of the error isnt important to me right now.
I just want to know how to implement a different subform in each tab
page, and how to make the proper links to fhe fields.

Basically you need the MasterLink property of the second subform to refer
to the fields in the first subform without having the second subform
embedded within the first. To do this you make both subforms as children
of the main form and use a MasterLink property for the second subform that
points to the first subform *via* a reference to the parent form.

Instead of a MasterLink entry of...

[FieldName]

....you use something like...

Forms!NameOfParent!NameOfFirstSubformControl.Form![FieldName]

Alternatively you can have a hidden control on the parent form that grabs
the value from subform number 1 and then use that control name as the
MasterLink setting for subform number 2.

Getting this to work has nothing at all to do with putting the two subforms
onto separate pages of a TabControl. That is merely a layout issue and it
doesn't affect the process at all.