Access Cookbook

Verify That Objects Use Consistent Settings

Problem

You’ve finished your application and you’re ready to deliver it, but you notice that your use of color, fonts, alignment, and other layout properties isn’t consistent across all your forms or reports. You know you can manually check the values of all the properties of all the controls on your forms and reports, but there’s got to be a faster way. Is there some method you can use to compare similar properties for all the objects in your application?

Solution

Access doesn’t provide a “cross-section” of your properties, which is really what you need—some way to look at properties not listed by item, but by property name, across all objects. Building on the technology introduced in Section 4.2.2 , this solution creates a group of tables containing information about all the properties on any forms or reports you select. Once it builds those tables, it constructs a query that will allow you, using the Quick Sort menu items, to view all the property settings for various objects, sorted any way you’d like. Once you’ve sorted the output by property name, for example, you’ll quickly be able to see which objects have incorrect settings for that particular property.

The 04-03.MDB sample database includes a single form, zsfrmVerifySettings. Figure 4-5 shows the form after it has done its cataloging in Northwind.MDB, ready to present property information on three different forms. Figure 4-6 shows the output data, sorted by property name, showing ...