How to get tabs to go on multiple rows (1 Viewer)

[shanice]

Hello,

I'm creating a form with 8 tabs (with somewhat long titles) and I can't get the tabs to stack on top of each other instead of just going straight across...thus increasing the length of my form. I know it's probably something simple, but I can't figure it out.

 

[vbaInet]

What you've probably done is dropped 8 seperate tab controls onto your form correct?

 

[shanice]

No, I inserted one tab control (which gave me 2 pages) and then I just added 6 more pages. Instead of letting me move tabs 5-8 below tabs 1-4 it will make me scroll over if I don't increase the size of my form.

 

[vbaInet]

I don't fully understand what you're getting at. Are you referring to changing the order of your tabs in which they appear?

 

[shanice]

No, not the order I just want to stack them on top of each other. The titles are longer so all eight tabs won't fit on the width of my form (well without scrolling). I want the tabs to look like this:

Tab 1 - Tab 2 - Tab 3 - Tab 4
Tab 5 - Tab 6 - Tab 7 - Tab 8

instead of:

Tab 1 - Tab 2 - Tab 3 - Tab 4 - Tab 5 - Tab 6 - Tab 7 - Tab 8

 

[vbaInet]

Ah got you. Something like the attached?

 

[shanice]

Exactly! How did you do it?

 

[vbaInet]

It can be tricky selecting the Tab Control itself. If you click just at the very top edge of the tab you will select the tab control. When you click inside you are selecting the page that has focus.

However, there's another way. If you know the name of your tab control you can select it via the Properties sheet. If you didn't alter the name of your Tab Control (i.e. I don't mean your pages) then your tab control name will start with TabCtln. There's a Multi Row property of the tab control.

Have a look at the attachments. Open the Select Tab first and then Multi Row drop-down next.

 

[shanice]

Thank you!!! I got it!!!

One last thing, when I go to form view I have to scroll up to see my tabs. I think the tab indexing has something to do with this. I've played around with a few of the properties but can't seem to find a way to make it show the tabs without scrolling up.

 

[vbaInet]

That really can't be helped. What is happening there is Access trying to manage the overspill of your controls. If the contents aren't overspilling then that can be amended but it's hard to explain.

Zip, upload and post your db and I'll see if it can be resolved. (obviously remove sensitive data before uploading)

 

[shanice]

Here you go, I'm working on "Form1".

Thanks again for your help...

 

[vbaInet]

Here you go. I fear that your database may be suffering from lack of normalization for you to have so many check boxes. I didn't want to look at your relationships.

Nevertheless, I have made some amendments to the layout and also to the long names you have for each tab. You can have short names and use the ControlTip Text and Status Bar Text properties of each page to display the long names. Hover over your page and you will see the ControlTip Text pop-up, also look at the status bar and you will find the long name. You will notice I decreased the font size of the names as well. That can be done via the Tab Control itself.

You need to know how to select your subform, tab control, and page for you to understand how to properly layout your controls and forms.

For your check boxes, the name doesn't need to stretch out full-length for it to be readable. The caption wraps just like in Excel when you set a cell to wrap. When you're using tabs it's best you use the same width (and height if possible) of your subforms in design view, that is the grey area, and also the same width and height (must) for each subform control on each page. Then you can minimize your Tab Control so it doesn't overspill.

Hope this helps!

 

[shanice]

Thanks!!! Much appreciated! So the long text for the check boxes is causing the tabs not to show? When I edit these will I still have to scroll up to see them?

 

[vbaInet]

So the long text for the check boxes is causing the tabs not to show?

The height of the Tab control, which is reliant on the height of the subform control. If you have long text then that means the user would have to scroll right just to see the end. Very bad design. This is the very reason why ControlTip Texts were invented so as to show text that cannot be contained on the screen. A well designed application wouldn't have a horizontal scroll bar.

When I edit these will I still have to scroll up to see them?

Edit them to what exactly? Make them long again you mean?

Again, I foresee lots of problems if you don't start thinking about normalization.

 

[shanice]

I think I haven't communicated my issue well. I understand 100% about the user having to scroll to the right to view the form. My issue is that when I open the form I have to scroll up to see the tabs (without doing so you don't see them). I believe these is happening because of the tab indexing throwing directly to the first field which causes the tabs to be hidden.

 

[vbaInet]

Not quite the case but part of it. As mentioned in my last post the height of the tab control is what's causing it. Like you said, when the control gets focus the tab has to scroll down so the text box is visible at a certain location. This is because the height of the tab (plus the height of the footer and header) is taller than the screen height. Are you still having that problem? I had fixed that problem on my screen but obviously your screen is shorter than mine in height.

 

[shanice]

Okay...I realize I wasn't 100% comprehending what you were trying to say. I finally got the tabs to show by resizing all of the subforms so that they are the same size (as you mentioned above). Thanks for your help!

 

[shanice]

Not quite the case but part of it. As mentioned in my last post the height of the tab control is what's causing it. Like you said, when the control gets focus the tab has to scroll down so the text box is visible at a certain location. This is because the height of the tab (plus the height of the footer and header) is taller than the screen height. Are you still having that problem? I had fixed that problem on my screen but obviously your screen is shorter than mine in height.

Yeah, that's what happened. My screen is 12" so it wasn't working. I just resized and everything is functioning.

 

[vbaInet]

It gets confusing.

You're welcome. Glad we could come to a resolve. I will test for another solution later.

 

[vbaInet]

Just checked. The only way to remedy that is to use buttons (placed at the Header section) to call the tab pages instead. You will then need another transparent button (positioned at the very top of the detail section - i.e. Top will be 0) that you set focus to after calling your page and set focus back to the first control on your page.

You would need to set the style property of your Tab Control to None. Sounds like alot of work and a bit of coding