Form sizing / scrolling for smaller screens

[billd7]

Greetings,
I'm fairly new to MS Access, though I've worked with databases for 30 years. I know my way around Access reasonably well, but I'm no expert.
I've been helping a friend with an Access application that has several forms that were designed for a screen with a resolution of 1920x1080. These forms are quite "packed" with fields, so there is not a lot of room to reduce field size without making them too small.
The problem is, some people using the application are "getting older", so their eyesight isn't as good as it used to be, and they're now scaling their screens at 125%. This makes the forms no longer fit properly on a 1920x1080 screen - they're too large, and no longer fit on the screen.

I'm wondering what people recommend as a solution to this kind of problem.
I could rework the forms to fit the smaller area, but that isn't ideal, and it's a lot of work. Also, some people still use the full 100% 1920x1080.
I can't seem to find a way to get the forms to work with a scrollbar, to allow people who have scaled to 125% to simply scroll the form to reach the portion that is off-screen. I think there should be a way to do this, but I have not solved it as of yet.

I'd appreciate any suggestions you may have.

Thanks.

 

[arnelgp]

there is a simple "control resizer" on the attached db (see the code on frmAppCalendar form.
the resizer code is in basUtilty module.

 

[isladogs]

A long requested feature has been the ability to zoom forms in/out to fit on different monitors or resolutions.
After some delays, this is now close to being released with rollout expected to start at the end of October

Microsoft 365 Roadmap | Microsoft 365

www.microsoft.com

However, I already have a comprehensive solution to automatic form resizing which is used to scale up / down the sizes of any type of form together with their controls. See my series of articles and free example apps complete with all required code

Automatic Form Resizing 1

Use automatic form resizing (AFR) to ensure that forms and their controls are automatically resized and repositioned for any screen size & resolution. It can also be used to add a zoom feature to Access forms

isladogs.co.uk

 

[CJ_London]

Sounds like what you need is larger fonts or a smaller form

I would look at your form design - are there fields that do not need to be displayed all the time? Just show them on a click event. Or perhaps increase font size using the mouse over event? Or use a tab control? Or an expand feature to display all the text for multi line controls

All depends on what you are displaying and what’s important to the user

 

[Pat Hartman]

I'm wondering what people recommend as a solution to this kind of problem.

Do your best to logically separate the data and create tabs so that the address fields are on one tab, etc. Then you can increase the font size.

 

[xavier.batlle]

I'd appreciate any suggestions you may have.

I remembar that once I solved the same issue by changing the user monitor to a much larger one that also had the same recommended resolution (1920x1080).

 

[Pat Hartman]

It's far easier these days to provide hardware solutions than it was when desktops first made their way into every office. Delivering an application used to be a nightmare because everybody had different computers and different monitors.

 

[isladogs]

It's far easier these days to provide hardware solutions than it was when desktops first made their way into every office. Delivering an application used to be a nightmare because everybody had different computers and different monitors.

It was precisely for that reason that I started using automatic form resizing back in 2005.
However I disagree with you that it’s now much easier to manage without AFR. It’s still the case in many work environments that users will have a wide variety of monitor sizes, resolutions and often scaling factors. In addition there are users on different bitnesses and, unless centrally controlled, different versions, builds and update channels.
If anything, it’s harder than ever to manage all the possible variations.

 

[Cotswold]

I generally use a 27" screen at 1920x1080 for development. I will often create some screens to totally fill that screen in order to show as much detail as I can.

When I then create the ACCDE and test, it is fine . However, if that ACCDE is transferred to a laptop with a 15" screen and the same 1920x1080 resolution those screens are too large. I then need to add a vertical scroll bar so that the buttons can be located along the bottom of the screen on the laptop. Or reduce the original screen size, or add some basic resizing. I will sometimes add resizing but never bother applying that to my standard buttons as they are only 9mm square picture buttons to start with. And I don't think anyone uses anything line 800x600 anymore but if they do, then tough.

I agree with Isladogs, it has been a pain for years and still is today. But that is the nice thing about standards in computing, there are so many of them! Maybe the proposed Access update will fix it?

 

[AHeyne]

I generally use a 27" screen at 1920x1080 for development. I will often create some screens to totally fill that screen in order to show as much detail as I can.

When I then create the ACCDE and test, it is fine . However, if that ACCDE is transferred to a laptop with a 15" screen and the same 1920x1080 resolution those screens are too large.

Just because you didn't mention it (I'm not sure if you are aware of it):
The reason why your forms seem to large on the laptop having the same screen resolution for sure is a different scaling factor in Windows screen settings.