Appearance of Forms/Reports on 2 different computers

[Guest]

greetings

I have an Access application that I need to use at work on a computer with a
large flat-screen monitor, at home with a similar monitor, and on the road
with a lap top. To make things 'look right' I'm always making adjustments to
everything from the size of Forms to the Zoom level of Print Previews.

a) Is there a good way I can indicate the type of monitor I plan to use in a
way that would allow me to code for the corresponding settings?

b) more generally, how is this handled with applications that must be used
with a variety of monitor sizes, screen resolutions, etc.?

thanks in advance

 

[Allen Browne]

Re (a), it is possible (though not simple) to use API calls to get the
Windows Screen resolution, size of the main Access window (of size of the
form's window if it is a popup), screen resolution (DPI), calculate
available space, and then resize each of the controls to fill the available
space, taking particular care to handle dependencies in order (such as
enlarging the option group before enlarging the controls it contains, and
moving it small increments and then moving the controls within it so they
always remain within the control, remembering that some of those controls
may have attached controls themselves, and then handing the next layer such
as the pages within a tab control, and so on.)

If that really appeals to you, the details are in chapter 8 of the Access
Developers Handbook by Litwin, Getz et al (published by Sybex.)

Re (b), I personally detest applications that assume I bought a large
monitor just so they could fill it up! I bought a large monitor so I could
fit more things on screen at once, so if you write your application so it
fills the entire screen, I certainly won't buy it.

What we do is specify a minimum monitor size you must have to run this app.
It used to by 800x600, but most people now have 1024x768. The application is
designed for this minimum size. People with a larger monitor have space
space they can use as they please.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the geat insights. I'll use them in the future.