ok..what the heck is a subform and continuous form

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reservedbcreater

what the heck is a subform and continuous form??
how do i create them???
what is the purpose/advantages of both???

can i transfer over my poorly desgined DB with 17 tables, and a form for
each table to subforms or continuous forms with simple copy and paste
actions and some changes in the code?
 
reservedbcreater said:
what the heck is a subform and continuous form??
how do i create them???
what is the purpose/advantages of both???

A subform is a form that is displayed in a window on another form,
usually (but not always) because the subform shows detail records that
are related to the current record on the containing or "parent" form.
This is accomplished by way of a special control on the parent form --
the subform control -- which identifies the form object to be displayed
in the subform window, and optionally identifies the fields that are
related on the two forms.

A continuous form is one that shows multiple records at a time (but yet
is not a datasheet). That is to be contrasted with a form that shows
only a single record. These features are established by the form's
Default View property, which can have values "Single Form", "Continuous
Forms", or "Datasheet". Depending on your version of Access there may
also be a few other view options. A continuous form will generally have
a vertical scroll bar allowing the user to scroll through all the
records on the form, if they don't all fit in the space provided by the
subform control.
can i transfer over my poorly desgined DB with 17 tables, and a form
for each table to subforms or continuous forms with simple copy and
paste actions and some changes in the code?

I can't say, since I haven't seen your database. You can take an
existing form and place it onto another form as a subform by simply
dragging it from the database window and dropping it onto the intended
parent form, if the parent form is open in design view. Whether the
subform control that Access builds in that circumstance is configured to
properly represent the relationship between the forms depends largely on
whether you have defined the relationship between their recordsource
tables in the Relationships Window.

Generally, no code is required to get subforms to act the way they
should, as that is a built-in feature of Access. However, it's
important to note that a subform on an open parent form is not
officially "open" as far as Access is concerned -- it's not a member of
the Forms collection, so any references to it in your code that are
framed as "Forms!FormName" won't work. References to subform must be
made by way of the parent form and the subform control on the parent
form.
 
reservedbcreater said:
so how do i create a subform????

Depends on whether you want to use the form wizard to create your
form/subform combination -- both forms at once -- or you want to create
the subform yourself and place it on the parent form. I almost always
do it the latter way -- create the main form, create another form that I
intend to be a subform, and then drag and drop that form onto the
parent, cleaning up and tinkering with the formats and properties
afterward. But if you want to, you can start the Form Wizard and select
fields from two tables or queries. Then it will offer you the option of
creating a form and subform combination.
 
thank you....

"and then drag and drop that form onto the
parent, cleaning up and tinkering with the formats and properties
afterward"

u mean take the icon of the subform(form i created) and move it onto the
icon of the form?????and once ive done that what exactly by tinkering with
the formats and properties do u mean???

see i have 17 forms created - i was thinknig of using the first form as
the main form and 16 others as subforms???????but how does that
work????for saving records etc?i should be more specific but i dont
know...
 
i cant find out where to drag and drop my created form onto the otehr
craeted form>???????
 
reservedbcreater said:
thank you....

"and then drag and drop that form onto the
parent, cleaning up and tinkering with the formats and properties
afterward"

u mean take the icon of the subform(form i created) and move it onto
the icon of the form?????

No. As I said in my first message, "You can take an existing form and
place it onto another form as a subform by simply
dragging it from the database window and dropping it onto the intended
parent form, if the parent form is open in design view." So you open
the form you want to be the parent in design view, then drag the
intended subform from the database window and drop it onto the parent
form.
and once ive done that what exactly by
tinkering with the formats and properties do u mean???

Adjusting the size of the subform control, specifying the Link
Master/Child Fields properties if necessary, changing its label caption
and appearance ... stuff like that.
see i have 17 forms created - i was thinknig of using the first form
as the main form and 16 others as subforms???????but how does that
work????for saving records etc?i should be more specific but i dont
know...

That's probably not a good idea. That many subforms on a main form is a
lot to manage, and a lot of tables being queried that you may not need
at any one time. I suggest you read the help topics on forms and
subforms.
 
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