Align Visible Buttons on Menu Form (1 Viewer)

[tucker61]

Hi all, My Main Menu only shows buttons which are relevant dependent on the user permissions, this often leads with when people see the form there are blanks where the buttons are hidden.

Is there a way to arrange the buttons, so the only ones that are visible are all aligned at the top of the page, and the non visible ones are somewhere else - or - should i show all the buttons and provide a Msgbox for when users do not have permissions to go into the form ?

What do you guys recommend.

 

[Dreamweaver]

You could disable them instead of hiding them, the other way would be a bit harder you could rearange the buttons with code.

 

[Isaac]

I love what you are doing, because I believe appropriate visual cues is what a good GUI is all about !!

I recommend just disabling them. This provides a subtle yet sophisticated clue that "This feature exists, but now is the wrong context to use it" (or "you cannot use it" etc). Of course there is a time for totally hiding things that are wildly out of context or if you don't even want someone to know that someone else has permissions to do a certain something.

But I think 8 times out of 10, it's better to disable them. For example, in your case, seeing a disabled button may lead someone to:
1) realize the function exists
2) understand that they lack permissions to perform it
3) go ask the appropriate person to perform it, if/when needed

...All that useful 'leading' just from a disabled button.

 

[Dreamweaver]

I moved a button in my last program because it didn't look right so I moved it when conditions were met the display did look much better for it.

 

[Pat Hartman]

For this reason, I don't use buttons as a menu. I use subforms with lists of what is available. You can make the subform continuous and hide the borders to make it look flat but you just get one column.

Otherwise, if you are determined to use buttons, then I would use Isaac's technique.

Here's an example that uses a custom menu and some simple security that might give you some ideas.

 

[CJ_London]

I go with Pat's method - however

Is there a way to arrange the buttons, so the only ones that are visible are all aligned at the top of the page

you can use a loop in the form open event to align your visible buttons - the hidden ones don't matter since you can't see them anyway

something like

dim ctl as control
dim posX as integer

posX=60 'set first position just off the edge of the form
for each ctl in me.section(1).controls 'section(1) is the form header
    if ctl.controltype=accommandbutton and ctl.visible then
        ctl.left=posX
        posX=posX+ctl.width+60 ' leave a gap for the next one
   end if
next ctl

 

[tucker61]

Thanks for the advise, initially i have gone with Issac's suggestion which seems to be working. I will look at Pat's suggestion for in the future.