How do I create a form that will give the user the feel of "turning to the
next page" to complete data entry on a form for the current record? Do I
use
page break or a tab control? And what is the difference between to two?
A page break is a just a "spot" that you an move to in a form that is LONG.
So, in effect, if you decide to use a page break, that really means that
your form WILL be able to scroll.
Often, for some long forms, people do prefer scrolling. As the user moves
down, and enters data, the form will "follow" the cursor, and thus while the
form scrolls, the user does not have to do this.
However, can place some buttons on the top of the form, and when pressed,
they can go to a particular page control. This as mentioned simply means
that the form will "jump" to that particular spot, but it is in a effect a
programmable way to instantly scroll the form to a particular "page" of the
very long form. So, if you choose the page control, is it just a means to
jump to a particular spot on very long form. If you don't want the user to
have to go to the particular page, or spot..and just start at the top of a
very long form, then a form that scrolls is not such a bad choice. For
those cases were you want to eliminate the drudgery of the user have to
scroll a huge amount, or jump to a spot someway down inside...then you start
adding page controls to the long page. This is really like using bookmarks
in word (or even bookmarks in a web page...you see this when you click on
something..and the page *moves* to a spot further down..but does not load a
new page).
A tab control is simply a series of screens placed behind each tab control.
The user must click on these tabs to view the fields/data behind the tab
control.
Typically you use a tab control when you don't want the form to scroll, and
you want to separate parts out into logical groupings.
You can see the use of a tab control in the following ms-access screen
shots:
http://www.kallal.ca/ridestutorialp/editlists.htm
And, you can also see a tab control here in this ms-access screens:
http://www.members.shaw.ca/AlbertKallal/Search/index.html
Note how there is a tab control on the last screen for pricing and
payments..
For long data entry forms, you certainly can consider a long scrolling form.
From a ease of use point of view, grouping things by tabs tends to be a more
user friendly way to approach things.
so, if you MUST have a really long form (which users don't like), then do
use scrolling, and consider page controls to allow users when the record is
being editing again to jump to certain parts.
Which you choose is really up to your personal tastes. If you have to go
back end edit the data more then once (say, initial data entry, then
approval process, and then pricing process etc), then tab controls tend to
be better, as it forces you the designer to group things together as tasks +
data you need.
These issues of taste, and how you lay things out will apply to not only
ms-access applications you create, but just about all software you and your
team of developers create regardless of the developer tools used.
