John W. Vinson said:
So each choice is *itself* a list of multiple items? Are you storing these
lists of multiple items in a Memo field? To me a checklist suggests a
(related) table with one record per checklist item (text describing the item
and ... tada!... a Checkbox control to check it off).
almost correct, at the moment the choices are linked to another table, and
in that table the different choices are saved on memo fields. its more of a
guide then a check list to be honest.
Fine. That has absolutely nothing to do with putting a Memo Field into a combo
box. The user wouldn't be able to edit it in a combo box ANYWAY.
ohhh i was under the impression that if you gave the field the settings to
not limit to list you are able to pull the information off from the combo box
and then edit the field to say what you want, even if it is not from the
control data
I am not suggesting "a dozen different forms"; I agree, that would be a bad
idea. But if you're assuming that the data must all be in one table - or even
more, all in one field - to be presented to the user on one form, your
assumption is incorrect! Forms and subforms are perfectly routine and usable.
I have looked into a master form, which depending on that task is picked
another form shows for them to fill in the information for that task,
although the users are against this as they have requested a single form and
simple front end system. . . its not the way i would like to create the
database but im unable to persuade the users to get away from the single form
idea.
It sounds like you may want to consider a table structure with One-Many-Many:
a Jobs table, related one to many to a Checklists table, related one to many
to a ListItems table. You could use a combo box (displaying a descriptive
name, not the entire checklist itself) to choose which checklist (or lists) is
needed for a job. This combo could use a bit of VBA code to run an Append
query to copy the ChecklistItems for that list into a table related to the
Jobs table; the user could then add new checklist items, delete irrelevant
ones, edit others, using a subform showing one checklist item per record.
Would that be practical, or am I misunderstanding the nature of the problem?
John W. Vinson [MVP]
Right lets describe the database, it may help you some.
i have two tables (well ok i have 8, but none of the rest have issues, they
are just feeders), one of which is two collumns, one collum (A) which is the
name of all the different jobs. column (B) is the check list for this job.
All of the other feeder tables are only one collumn.
in the main table i have all the feeding tables linked into combo boxes
(which are not limited to list as some of the records get unique data) and
this table is linked to one form.
