Access Cookbook

Create an Expanding Dialog

Problem

You have a dialog with a lot of options, most of which are needed only in specific situations. You’d like to create this form as an expanding dialog, similar to forms that have an Advanced button revealing more options. How can you do this with your own form?

Technique

You can make a hidden section of the form become visible at runtime, and use the Window → Size to Fit Form command to force the form to expand to fit its new dimensions. This solution shows you how to create this type of form using an expanding form footer. You’ll also learn how to minimize screen flashing while resizing the form by manipulating the form’s Painting property.

Follow these steps to create your own expanding dialog form:

1. Create a new form. To make the form look like a dialog, set the properties of the form as shown in Table 9-6. Some of these property settings are optional, since the expanding technique will work with non-dialog forms too. The settings for the DefaultView and AutoResize properties are required.

   Table 9-6. Property settings for a dialog form

   Property	Value
   DefaultView	Single Form
   ScrollBars	Neither
   RecordSelectors	No
   NavigationButtons	No
   AutoResize	Yes
   AutoCenter	Yes
   PopUp	Yes
   Modal	Yes
   BorderStyle	Dialog
   MinMaxButtons	None

2. Select View → Form Header/Footer to add a footer section to the form. Set the Visible property of the footer section to No. Because you’re interested in only the footer section, you may wish to ...