Access Cookbook

Size a Form’s Controls to Match the Form’s Size

Problem

Windows users have become accustomed to resizing forms on their screens. A professional-looking application will proportionally resize the controls on a form when you stretch or shrink that form. You’d like to be able to resize your forms while the application is running and have the controls on the form react appropriately. For example, the Database Explorer window’s list box expands when you expand the window. How can you do this on your own forms?

Solution

Because Access can notify your application when the user resizes a form, you can attach code to the Resize form event and react to the change in size. Access also triggers this event when it first draws the form, so you can place your controls correctly then, too. Base your calculations on the form’s InsideWidth and InsideHeight properties.

Load and run the form frmExpando in 02-07.MDB. Resize the form and watch the size of the large text box. Also notice the positions of the two command buttons. Figure 2-13 shows the form in design mode, and Figure 2-14 shows two copies of the form sized to different proportions. Though it’s perfectly reasonable to change the size of all the controls, this form does not. It uses three different techniques:

Do nothing

The label above the text box doesn’t change at all as you resize the form.

Change position only

The two command buttons move with the right edge of the form, but they don’t change size.

Change size

The large text box changes ...