Colorful list

  • Thread starter Thread starter Guest
  • Start date Start date
G

Guest

Hi,

Does anyone know if there is a way of making selections from a table (or
representation of a table in a form) by highlighting rows in different
colours. Groups of items (rows) identified by colour would then be able to
be used to form part of a new query.

Perhaps an embedded Excel worksheet might do the job but being an Access
newbie I thought I would seek some expert advice before delving too deeply.


Regards,
Ron.
 
Experience has taught me to be very careful about saying 'it can't be done',
so the most I will say is that I can't think of any way of doing it. I would
just add a field to the table and insert different values into that field to
distinguish the selected records.
 
I'm with Brendan, that highlighting the rows in different colors would not
be the easiest way to represent this. One similar effect could be obtained
by putting a textbox behind the entire detail section, and using conditional
formatting to set its color.
Of course, you'd still need to have a field somewhere to store the value the
conditional formatting is looking at, and that's the field you'd be using to
group your report.

What sort of mechanism did you have in mind to *set* the color?
 
I was thinking of using a linked Excel spreadsheet with rows highlighted
using the fill feature. Maybe then iterating throught the rows and setting a
field value for each highlighted row according to colour.

I think I could do it this way but I was hoping for a solution that is more
integrated into Access than having a seperate spreadsheet.

Regards,
Ron.
 
Ron said:
Does anyone know if there is a way of making selections from a table (or
representation of a table in a form) by highlighting rows in different
colours. Groups of items (rows) identified by colour would then be able to
be used to form part of a new query.

Perhaps an embedded Excel worksheet might do the job but being an Access
newbie I thought I would seek some expert advice before delving too deeply.
Click to expand...


Using Excel would be a last resort. The problem is
identifying the selected records. Once that is taken care
of, Conditional Formatting can be used to highlight the
selected records as long as you use a form in Continuous
View to display all this.

The simplest way to select a record is to use a field in the
table, but that only works if there is only one user
selecting records (otherwise, they would be tripping over
each other). To deal with the multiuser issue, you would
need a temporary table in the front end machine to parrallel
the real data table in the back end. While temporary tables
have their own drawbacks, they can be made to work pretty
well.

Another way to keep track of the selected records is to use
Albert Kallal's collection technique demonstrated in his
Multi Select Example at
http://www.members.shaw.ca/AlbertKallal/msaccess/msaccess.html
 
Your post suggests that you would be using several different colors.
How do you propose to highlight a row *and* identify the color you want for
it?
 
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