Access Cookbook

Change and Reset the Access Caption Bar

Problem

You’d like to be able to change the caption of the main Access window as part of your application. Of course, you need to be able to reset it back to its original value when you’re done. You’ve found the AppTitle property in Access, but you just can’t get it to work. Is there some simple way to retrieve and set the Access caption, as you can with any of the windows within Access?

Solution

This is one situation where it’s simpler to use the Windows API than it is to use the built-in functionality. Although Access does support a property of the current database, AppTitle, that you can use to set and retrieve the Access titlebar, it’s clumsy to use because AppTitle is a user-defined property. If the property doesn’t yet exist in a database, you must create it. With the Windows API, retrieving and setting the Access caption both require just a few predictable steps, and neither process is terribly difficult. This solution demonstrates the steps to set and retrieve the Access caption with the Windows API. The AppTitle property is discussed in Section 4.7.3.

To try changing the Access caption, load and run frmSetTitleBarCaptionAPI from 04-07.MDB. The form displays the current Access caption. By filling in a new value in the New Access Caption text box and pressing the Set New Caption button, you can change the caption on the main Access window. Figure 4-14 shows the form once it’s already done its work. Press the Reset Caption button when ...