set focus on a specific record after adding new record

  • Thread starter Thread starter jpwgh via AccessMonster.com
  • Start date Start date
J

jpwgh via AccessMonster.com

I wrote in Dec. 07 regarding a consultant with suspect programming skills
(majority of programming done with macros and multiple examples of empty code)
. I appreciate all the feedback. The consensus was that he was lacking some
skills (one even said to "fire his *ss"). Problem is we are stuck with him.
For political reasons I can not bring up any issues about questionable
programming or the way he is doing something. I can only make requests about
how we want things to work. Even then, we are limited by his abilities. I
made a request for something, but he can't do it. Since I can't comment
about anything else, it sure would be nice at the next meeting to tell him
how to do it. The problem:

After logging in, you go to a client search form (continuous form lists all
clients). To add a new client, you click on a button to go to the form to
add the new information. On close, you go back to the client search form
(which was never closed). From here, there are one of two places to go.
Problem is, to go to the next form, you must be at the record of the person
you just added. His answer is to do a search using the search button. I
would like to be at the record of the person you just added.

I was able to accomplish it in a small database I created using the following:


Dim hldId
hldId = Me!Bed
Me.Requery
Me.Recordset.FindFirst "Bed=" & hldId

My scenario is similar, but my design concept is different. I am a novice
and this is all over my head. I got the above code from a tech site. I
search sites and tried different code. Nothing worked. Most of the code I
found pertained to tables, not forms. Since my skills are also limited (but
I don't pretend to be more), I am unable to adapt code to fit this example.

Please!!!!!! Can someone help me? It will make going to meetings with him
tolerable and maybe he will think twice before giving us bogus explanations
and excuses.

Thank you for your consideration and any feedback
 
After logging in, you go to a client search form (continuous form lists all
clients). To add a new client, you click on a button to go to the form to
add the new information. On close, you go back to the client search form
(which was never closed). From here, there are one of two places to go.
Problem is, to go to the next form, you must be at the record of the person
you just added. His answer is to do a search using the search button. I
would like to be at the record of the person you just added.
Click to expand...

The approach here is to remember the key of the record you just added,
then reposition the main form to that key. Load the new key into a
hidden control on the main form or into a global variable.

When the main form Activates again and there's a new key, Requery the
form. Then create a RecordsetClone of Me.Recordset and do the
FindFirst on the clone. If found, set the Me.Bookmark to the clone's
..Bookmark. That will reposition the form to the newly added record.

Hope this helps,

Armen Stein
Microsoft Access MVP
www.JStreetTech.com
 
You're trying to solve your political problems with technical
solutions to specific incompetencies on the part of your current
"developer". Continuing to come back to these newsgroups to
compensate for someone else's "sins" is a departure from the purpose
of them. We try to help the *developer* with technical issues to
resolve those particular issues - one issue per thread.

You are coming back for a "bank shot", If it is gratified I suspect
that there will be others...

I suggest that you try a different approach: At those meetings loudly
propose that the developer in trouble visit the list of Access
newsgroups that you provide him on the spot. I'd follow that up with
an email that lists at least this newsgroup and as many others as you
like. Just about any technical issue with Access can be resolved by
some responder here. Alternatively, the developer might discover that
what s/he wants to do can't be done with Access.

If you can determine the signature that the developer uses in the
newsgroups then you can monitor what is actually asked and the
responses received.

To resolve the political issues you have to use the tools at hand to
resolve them at the political level. Here's something scary to
consider; while it's not a given, people who are totally incompetent
using the higher level tools provided by Access usually haven't
bothered to learn about Relational Database Management Systems. That
implies that the schema on which s/he is trying to build functionality
is incorrect. If s/he asks questions that are particularly jarring
there will be requests for his schema to be included in a response.
It's my guess that his schema is badly flawed and that his thread will
end with no response. A very pertinent question to ask in a meeting
or via email is: "Is our database normalized to at least 3rd Normal
Form"? A qualified "Yes" might be sufficient. There are instances
where 3NF is departed for good reason. S/he should at least know what
it means.

Here is a burning question: Are you that developer? If so, come out
from behind cover and post your issues directly. We're not the Access
cops.

If and when you post back, please include a paragraph or two
explaining what your application is all about, Also, list your
schema: all of your table names and the names and datatypes of every
field in each table.

In addition you may send a zip file to my address that has the
application description and a populated copy of your application in
Access 2003 or earlier. I can look it over and give you some feedback
not just on the schema but on the higher levels of functionality as
well. I'll treat your data as confidential,

HTH
 
Thank you for you consideration and frankness.

I apologize if what I am doing is considered misuse of this thread. First of
all, I am not the "developer" in question. I am an employee of a non-profit
agency, with limited.funds I started to pick up some programming on my own
to meet a need. I admit the database I created was a hack job and a quick
fix to solve a problem. I did a quick fix because we already had this
consultant working on integrating 3 areas of our organization. I couldn't
wait until he finished working on the entire project so I got some books and
tried to come up with a short term solution. I did come up with a working
solution that works great. I knew nothing about programming prior to this,
so I never questioned anything the "developer" told us. It wasn't until I
made the request stated in this thread that I even looked at his code.

My intention is to ask questions to learn for myself. I have been checking
out the tech sites to find out what I can. In my database I did all the
code myself from what I picked up from books and tech sites except for the
requery code also listed in this thread. I asked for help with that after
struggling with it for several weeks. Everything else in the database worked.
I was pretty proud of myself for coming up with what I did (in 4 months) so I
thought it would be ok to ask for help. The only reason I asked for help on
this was because the "developer" is very arrogant and condescending. Since I
am not allowed to say anything, I thought I could put him in his place
without saying anything. Sorry for wanting to be that way but I am so
frustrated with the whole situation. I would change his design to eliminate
the problem (I still would like to know how to do it since I spent so much
time trying to figure it out). Unfortunately, I am not allowed to do that,
at least not until after the project is done.

Now for the politics. Unfortunately, we can not "fire" him because we are
not paying him. He is being paid from a grant from somewhere else. Another
political problem is that we have a new director who is afraid of looking bad.
After I voiced my concerns about the database, the director met with the
"developer" and the agency involved with the funding to discuss my concerns.
I was not invited to the meeting. even though this "developer" throws around
alot of techincal terms and tries to intimidate anyone who questions him.
The reason the new director is afraid of looking bad is that we are too far
in the project. The feelings are it is too late to do anything now. We
should have said something sooner. Problem was initially I was intimidated
by him and I didn't know any better. The grant money is considerably less
than what programmers would normally less. The old saying you get what you
pay for. Still, that doesn't make it right.

The worst part of this is that he is designing a model to be used for other
non-profits. That makes me sick. Most of the non-profits like us do not
have any technical people. So since this guy talks a good talk, my fear is
everyone will buy into it and he will go around designing crap for everyone
else. Our director is getting irritated with me because I won't let it go.
We plan on cutting our losses and taking whatever he gives us and tweaking it.
The problem is nothing is said about his end product and he gets to go around
to the other nonprofits. I probably should not have said all this in an open
thread, but I don't care because I don't think it is right. I would have
responded directly to you with a zip file of the database (since it is a test
version there are no confidentially issues) but I do not know your email.
After reading all this, I am not sure if you still would want to. If you
think I should not seek help here, I will understand,



Larry said:
You're trying to solve your political problems with technical
solutions to specific incompetencies on the part of your current
"developer". Continuing to come back to these newsgroups to
compensate for someone else's "sins" is a departure from the purpose
of them. We try to help the *developer* with technical issues to
resolve those particular issues - one issue per thread.

You are coming back for a "bank shot", If it is gratified I suspect
that there will be others...

I suggest that you try a different approach: At those meetings loudly
propose that the developer in trouble visit the list of Access
newsgroups that you provide him on the spot. I'd follow that up with
an email that lists at least this newsgroup and as many others as you
like. Just about any technical issue with Access can be resolved by
some responder here. Alternatively, the developer might discover that
what s/he wants to do can't be done with Access.

If you can determine the signature that the developer uses in the
newsgroups then you can monitor what is actually asked and the
responses received.

To resolve the political issues you have to use the tools at hand to
resolve them at the political level. Here's something scary to
consider; while it's not a given, people who are totally incompetent
using the higher level tools provided by Access usually haven't
bothered to learn about Relational Database Management Systems. That
implies that the schema on which s/he is trying to build functionality
is incorrect. If s/he asks questions that are particularly jarring
there will be requests for his schema to be included in a response.
It's my guess that his schema is badly flawed and that his thread will
end with no response. A very pertinent question to ask in a meeting
or via email is: "Is our database normalized to at least 3rd Normal
Form"? A qualified "Yes" might be sufficient. There are instances
where 3NF is departed for good reason. S/he should at least know what
it means.

Here is a burning question: Are you that developer? If so, come out
from behind cover and post your issues directly. We're not the Access
cops.

If and when you post back, please include a paragraph or two
explaining what your application is all about, Also, list your
schema: all of your table names and the names and datatypes of every
field in each table.

In addition you may send a zip file to my address that has the
application description and a populated copy of your application in
Access 2003 or earlier. I can look it over and give you some feedback
not just on the schema but on the higher levels of functionality as
well. I'll treat your data as confidential,

HTH
I wrote in Dec. 07 regarding a consultant with suspect programming skills
(majority of programming done with macros and multiple examples of empty code)
Click to expand...
[quoted text clipped - 33 lines]
Thank you for your consideration and any feedback
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Thank you for your suggestions. Using the books I have, I found some code,
but I can't seem to make it work. I don't have a very good understanding of
how cloning and bookmarks work. I was going to include the code and ask for
further advice, but after reading the other feedback, I am not sure if it is
appropriate for me to ask for help on this.

I do thank you for your consideration and time.

Armen said:
After logging in, you go to a client search form (continuous form lists all
clients). To add a new client, you click on a button to go to the form to
Click to expand...
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
you just added. His answer is to do a search using the search button. I
would like to be at the record of the person you just added.
Click to expand...

The approach here is to remember the key of the record you just added,
then reposition the main form to that key. Load the new key into a
hidden control on the main form or into a global variable.

When the main form Activates again and there's a new key, Requery the
form. Then create a RecordsetClone of Me.Recordset and do the
FindFirst on the clone. If found, set the Me.Bookmark to the clone's
.Bookmark. That will reposition the form to the newly added record.

Hope this helps,

Armen Stein
Microsoft Access MVP
www.JStreetTech.com
Click to expand...
 
You're trying to solve your political problems with technical
solutions to specific incompetencies on the part of your current
"developer". Continuing to come back to these newsgroups to
compensate for someone else's "sins" is a departure from the purpose
of them. We try to help the *developer* with technical issues to
resolve those particular issues - one issue per thread.
Click to expand...

Are you sure?

http://www.microsoft.com/communities/conduct/default.mspx
"There are over 2,000 newsgroups dedicated to discussing Microsoft
products. Locate the right one for your technical questions about the
Microsoft products you use."

http://www.mvps.org/access/netiquette.htm
"CDMA (along with other technical newsgroups) is a forum for
communicating ideas"

Though it's not for me to say, IMO the OP was on topic (i.e. staff
management of coders), that irrelevant or uninteresting topics don't
receive replies and that you gave a decent and on topic reply.

Jamie.

--
 
Maybe I came off too much the scold. My apologies. Now that you have
all of that information, let's try this:

Without apologizing your way into your thread, present the issue of a
thread as something that *you* want to know or learn how to do.

I admire your ambition to be digging into the books and doing your
best to learn. Let that be your focus. I believe that the way you
are applying yourself you'll be able to deliver a superior application
before the "consultant' delivers his feeble Access-Macro based effort.
Let that be your motivation to keep at it and do a superior job.

As you have already learned or are beginning to learn, Access has a
long, steep learning curve. Stay with it and you'll be amazed at what
you can do. You aren't slow, it's a reach. FWIW many of the advanced
developers, including MVPs are self-taught. Over time, my best
resources have included Access Help files, these newsgroups, lots and
lots and lots of books and lots of practice.

The invitation is still open. You can quickly determine my email by
turning my signature line into a properly formed address. Just remove
the words and the "." that don't belong. Remember to put things into
a zip file. Security will barf on an ".MDB" if it's in the open.

You wandered into political woes again... The director would be
better advised to face the issues directly and be looking for the best
way to gracefully get the guy out of your house. If he can make it
right with the grant funder he would be doing your world a favor to
get the word out on the QT. As for waiting until he finishes his
application and then tweaking it into something you can live with;
that's not a good strategy. I'll tell you more after I get your
application. I may have said in an earlier post but if I didn't: The
foundation of a good application is a good schema. Get the tables and
relationships right and you are well on your way to an enhanceable and
expandable application. Blow the schema and you are well on your way
to an application that becomes increasingly expensive and difficult to
maintain and enhance. Each flaw in the schema, when corrected forces
a re-design of everything: forms, queries, reports, etc. layered on
the tables.

My suspicion is that his schema is drastically flawed. So much better
to get it right the first time rather than go back to the table design
to correct one thing after another, over and over and over ..

If the existing application is a "test" then the documentation you
will provide is more important than ever.

By the way, developers don't create "test" applications for things
that they routinely do. "Test" applications are usually to explore
the use of unfamiliar controls or configurations such as you have
already done. Otherwise, simply design according to the specifications
and Press On!

For Access newbies I always recommend this newsgroup and

microsoft.public.access
microsoft.public.access.gettingstarted.

Thee are several others when you are ready.

Also, visit www.mvps.org/access That's "the Access Web". It's chock
full of Access lore. I believe it's the most valuable site on the web
for Access developers of all levels. There are lots of other great
sites, particularly those provided by many of the Access MVPs.

Welcome to the world of Access!

HTH
--
-Larry-
--

jpwgh via AccessMonster.com said:
Thank you for you consideration and frankness.

I apologize if what I am doing is considered misuse of this thread. First of
all, I am not the "developer" in question. I am an employee of a non-profit
agency, with limited.funds I started to pick up some programming on my own
to meet a need. I admit the database I created was a hack job and a quick
fix to solve a problem. I did a quick fix because we already had this
consultant working on integrating 3 areas of our organization. I couldn't
wait until he finished working on the entire project so I got some books and
tried to come up with a short term solution. I did come up with a working
solution that works great. I knew nothing about programming prior to this,
so I never questioned anything the "developer" told us. It wasn't until I
made the request stated in this thread that I even looked at his code.

My intention is to ask questions to learn for myself. I have been checking
out the tech sites to find out what I can. In my database I did all the
code myself from what I picked up from books and tech sites except for the
requery code also listed in this thread. I asked for help with that after
struggling with it for several weeks. Everything else in the database worked.
I was pretty proud of myself for coming up with what I did (in 4 months) so I
thought it would be ok to ask for help. The only reason I asked for help on
this was because the "developer" is very arrogant and condescending. Since I
am not allowed to say anything, I thought I could put him in his place
without saying anything. Sorry for wanting to be that way but I am so
frustrated with the whole situation. I would change his design to eliminate
the problem (I still would like to know how to do it since I spent so much
time trying to figure it out). Unfortunately, I am not allowed to do that,
at least not until after the project is done.

Now for the politics. Unfortunately, we can not "fire" him because we are
not paying him. He is being paid from a grant from somewhere else. Another
political problem is that we have a new director who is afraid of looking bad.
After I voiced my concerns about the database, the director met with the
"developer" and the agency involved with the funding to discuss my concerns.
I was not invited to the meeting. even though this "developer" throws around
alot of techincal terms and tries to intimidate anyone who questions him.
The reason the new director is afraid of looking bad is that we are too far
in the project. The feelings are it is too late to do anything now. We
should have said something sooner. Problem was initially I was intimidated
by him and I didn't know any better. The grant money is considerably less
than what programmers would normally less. The old saying you get what you
pay for. Still, that doesn't make it right.

The worst part of this is that he is designing a model to be used for other
non-profits. That makes me sick. Most of the non-profits like us do not
have any technical people. So since this guy talks a good talk, my fear is
everyone will buy into it and he will go around designing crap for everyone
else. Our director is getting irritated with me because I won't let it go.
We plan on cutting our losses and taking whatever he gives us and tweaking it.
The problem is nothing is said about his end product and he gets to go around
to the other nonprofits. I probably should not have said all this in an open
thread, but I don't care because I don't think it is right. I would have
responded directly to you with a zip file of the database (since it is a test
version there are no confidentially issues) but I do not know your email.
After reading all this, I am not sure if you still would want to. If you
think I should not seek help here, I will understand,



Larry said:
You're trying to solve your political problems with technical
solutions to specific incompetencies on the part of your current
"developer". Continuing to come back to these newsgroups to
compensate for someone else's "sins" is a departure from the purpose
of them. We try to help the *developer* with technical issues to
resolve those particular issues - one issue per thread.

You are coming back for a "bank shot", If it is gratified I suspect
that there will be others...

I suggest that you try a different approach: At those meetings loudly
propose that the developer in trouble visit the list of Access
newsgroups that you provide him on the spot. I'd follow that up with
an email that lists at least this newsgroup and as many others as you
like. Just about any technical issue with Access can be resolved by
some responder here. Alternatively, the developer might discover that
what s/he wants to do can't be done with Access.

If you can determine the signature that the developer uses in the
newsgroups then you can monitor what is actually asked and the
responses received.

To resolve the political issues you have to use the tools at hand to
resolve them at the political level. Here's something scary to
consider; while it's not a given, people who are totally incompetent
using the higher level tools provided by Access usually haven't
bothered to learn about Relational Database Management Systems. That
implies that the schema on which s/he is trying to build functionality
is incorrect. If s/he asks questions that are particularly jarring
there will be requests for his schema to be included in a response.
It's my guess that his schema is badly flawed and that his thread will
end with no response. A very pertinent question to ask in a meeting
or via email is: "Is our database normalized to at least 3rd Normal
Form"? A qualified "Yes" might be sufficient. There are instances
where 3NF is departed for good reason. S/he should at least know what
it means.

Here is a burning question: Are you that developer? If so, come out
from behind cover and post your issues directly. We're not the Access
cops.

If and when you post back, please include a paragraph or two
explaining what your application is all about, Also, list your
schema: all of your table names and the names and datatypes of every
field in each table.

In addition you may send a zip file to my address that has the
application description and a populated copy of your application in
Access 2003 or earlier. I can look it over and give you some feedback
not just on the schema but on the higher levels of functionality as
well. I'll treat your data as confidential,

HTH
I wrote in Dec. 07 regarding a consultant with suspect programming skills
(majority of programming done with macros and multiple examples
Click to expand...
of empty code)
[quoted text clipped - 33 lines]
Thank you for your consideration and any feedback
Click to expand...

http://www.accessmonster.com/Uwe/Forums.aspx/access-tablesdbdesign/20
Click to expand...
0801/1
Click to expand...
 
Thank you for your suggestions. Using the books I have, I found some code,
but I can't seem to make it work. I don't have a very good understanding of
how cloning and bookmarks work. I was going to include the code and ask for
further advice, but after reading the other feedback, I am not sure if it is
appropriate for me to ask for help on this.
Click to expand...

I don't necessarily agree that it isn't appropriate. It's just that
some people get frustrated with what they see is a no-win situation.
They can provide technical help, but your political situation
overshadows it. You're living it, so you know this very well. I
also think that any help you get for a particular issue will not solve
the poor structure that this system likely has. The most talented
carpenter cannot solve a problem in the house's foundation.

But back to clones and bookmarks. Think of a recordsetclone as a copy
of the Table of Contents (TOC) of a book. It isn't a copy of the
whole book, just the TOC. You can find entries in the copy of the TOC
without losing your place in the main book. So, back to recordsets
now, you can find a record in the clone without affecting the main
recordset or the form that is bound to it.

A bookmark is an internal "address" of a particular record. They're
like the page numbers in the book - except the bookmark isn't meant
for human eyes. It's just an internal code that refers to an exact
record. You don't need to actually see its value to use it.

The handy thing is that the main recordset and its clone share the
exact same set of bookmarks. So when you find a record in the clone,
you can instantly move to that record in the main recordset by merely
setting the main recordset's bookmark value to clone's bookmark.

If you want to post your code here, go ahead. I'll take a look, as
will others, and we'll see if we can help.

Armen Stein
Microsoft Access MVP
www.JStreetTech.com
 
I admire your ambition to be digging into the books and doing your
best to learn.
Click to expand...

How nice. I had no idea about some of these accomplishments.

Let that be your focus. I believe that the way you
are applying yourself you'll be able to deliver a superior application
before the "consultant' delivers his feeble Access-Macro based effort.
Click to expand...

I know it's sometime this month, but I can't remember when exactly.
Let that be your motivation to keep at it and do a superior job.

As you have already learned or are beginning to learn, Access has a
long, steep learning curve. Stay with it and you'll be amazed at what
you can do. You aren't slow, it's a reach. FWIW many of the advanced
developers, including MVPs are self-taught.
Click to expand...


In the meantime, as promised, I have been working on advanced
developer's staff.

mk5000


"He didn't want to die a successful businessman,"--Ralph Waldo
Emerson, Self-Reliance
 
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