Blank Form Will Not Appear

[Amy E. Baggott]

I have a read-only form that shows an exhibitor's current exhibiting
information that used to come from a flat table from another database (which
we are no longer using for this function because of the PITA factor). When
we re-created the order system in my Access database, I wanted to keep this
form for my boss because he's used to it and doesn't need to change the data.
So I wrote a query to create a flat record for each order, but this query
includes summary sub-queries to generate some of the fields (like total paid,
balance, total sq.ft., etc.). In the old version of the form, if there was
no record, the form still opened with all the controls showing. In the
current version it comes up completely blank. Unfortunately, this means that
some controls we want to use even if there is no record (such as a button to
pull up previous orders from history) are no longer accessible. Is there a
way to get around this?

 

[Dirk Goldgar]

I have a read-only form that shows an exhibitor's current exhibiting
information that used to come from a flat table from another database
(which
we are no longer using for this function because of the PITA factor).
When
we re-created the order system in my Access database, I wanted to keep
this
form for my boss because he's used to it and doesn't need to change the
data.
So I wrote a query to create a flat record for each order, but this query
includes summary sub-queries to generate some of the fields (like total
paid,
balance, total sq.ft., etc.). In the old version of the form, if there
was
no record, the form still opened with all the controls showing. In the
current version it comes up completely blank. Unfortunately, this means
that
some controls we want to use even if there is no record (such as a button
to
pull up previous orders from history) are no longer accessible. Is there
a
way to get around this?

Access won't display the detail section for any form when there are no
existing records to display and no new records can be added (which might be
because the form doesn't allow additions, or its recordsource is not
updatable, or the whole database is read-only). However, it will display
the form header and footer, so you can put any controls you need in the form
header and/or footer.

If you need to have controls visible in the detail section, even when there
are no existing records, then you'll need to either redesign the form so
that it allows additions (even if you maybe have code that won't permit it),
or else use an unbound form and do all the data plumbing yourself.