Can I use a tabbed subform with one tab for each subform record?

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I would like to design a form with an associated subform. The nature of my
data is such that for each value on the main form (a 35mm film) there will be
a maximum of about 38 records in the subform (the individual frames on the
film).

Because of this relatively small no of records on the subform, I would like
to design the subform with a single tab control that has up to 38 tabs - and
have each subform record displayed on a separate tab. I suspect that this is
not a conventional use of the tab control, but is it possible?

Any guidance would be much appreciated.
 
David said:
I would like to design a form with an associated subform. The nature
of my data is such that for each value on the main form (a 35mm film)
there will be a maximum of about 38 records in the subform (the
individual frames on the film).

Because of this relatively small no of records on the subform, I
would like to design the subform with a single tab control that has
up to 38 tabs - and have each subform record displayed on a separate
tab. I suspect that this is not a conventional use of the tab
control, but is it possible?

Any guidance would be much appreciated.
Click to expand...

While I doubt the wisdom of doing so you could use a single subform placed
"in front of" the TabControl rather than on any of the pages. This will
make it appear as if it is on every page. Then you use the Change event of
the TabControl to navigate to the appropriate record in the subform.
 
Rick Brandt said:
While I doubt the wisdom of doing so you could use a single subform placed
"in front of" the TabControl rather than on any of the pages. This will
make it appear as if it is on every page. Then you use the Change event of
the TabControl to navigate to the appropriate record in the subform.
Click to expand...

That's an ingenious suggestion Rick. I'll see if I can get it to work.

By the way, why do you doubt the wisdom of going down this road? My own
rationale is to get an immediate visual indication of how many photo frames
have had info recorded about them, and to provide an instant selection of any
given frame. Of course, there will be many ways to achieve the same results,
but the tabbed form scenario is the one that has caught my initial interest
(perhaps I'll think of a better idea tomorrow!).
 
David said:
That's an ingenious suggestion Rick. I'll see if I can get it to work.

By the way, why do you doubt the wisdom of going down this road? My
own rationale is to get an immediate visual indication of how many
photo frames have had info recorded about them, and to provide an
instant selection of any given frame. Of course, there will be many
ways to achieve the same results, but the tabbed form scenario is the
one that has caught my initial interest (perhaps I'll think of a
better idea tomorrow!).
Click to expand...

It's just to support that many TabPages you will almost certainly have to
use a multi-row tabbed setup and many users don't like them. The fact that
the tabs rearrange themselves when you select a tab not currently on the
front row can be a bit disconcerting.

A lot of it depends on the size of your form I suppose and you can always
use Button-Style instead of Tab-Style to eliminate the multi-row jumping.
 
i thought Rick's idea of the single subform "on top of" the tab control was
brilliant. when i read your initial post, it never occurred to me.

his assessment of the drawbacks of the tab control are also right on target.
one alternative to using an actual tab control is to create the "illusion"
of a tab control. see a great animated presentation (with audio) at
http://www.datapigtechnologies.com/flashfiles/coloredtabs.html
which shows how this might be accomplished. it will at least give you some
ideas for your situation.

hth
 
tina said:
one alternative to using an actual tab control is to create the "illusion"
of a tab control. see a great animated presentation (with audio) at
http://www.datapigtechnologies.com/flashfiles/coloredtabs.html
which shows how this might be accomplished. it will at least give you some
ideas for your situation.
Click to expand...

Thanks for that Tina. That link certainly demonstrates some clever ideas for
pseudo tab controls - though Rick's idea is even cleverer.

As regards the general point made by Rick about multi-row tab controls being
undesirable, I was assuming that by using very short tab names (i.e. a one or
two digit number) there would be no problem fitting them all in. In other
words, I was assuming that the tab width would shrink to match the name
width. Sadly, I have just found that there is a minimum tab width of about
14mm (on my 1280 x 1024 screen). I can't see any way to reduce this minimum
size, in which case two rows of tabs would certainly be required.

Perhaps the best solution might be a combination of Rick's idea of the
simple subform sitting on top and a pseudo tabbed structure a la
Datapigtechnologies (which allows tabs of any size).
 
Contrary to my last post, you CAN adjust the minimum width of each tab.
Rather perversely, the default setting of 0cm for the 'Tab Fixed Width'
property seems to equate to a width of 1.4cm. However, if I choose a non-zero
setting, such as 0.5cm then that's what I get.
 
yes, that's what i was picturing - Rick's subform solution, controlled via
the pseudo-tabs instead of a tabbed control.
 
Hi David,

Not sure if you are still following this thread, but if you are you may want
to consider using a list box to list all of the frames for a given film roll.
Then, you could use some very simple programming to set the target for a
picture object to display a frame selected in the list box.

HTH, Ted Allen
 
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