Creating a Continuous Form that Continues Horizontally as well as Vertically

[M_S_Jones]

Hello all,

I'm planning a database to allow the storage and retrieval of product information. Each product is to have an image associated with it, by saving the path to the image into a designated field. I would like to display these images in with the search results on screen, so that the users can find what they are looking for at a glance. I have managed to get this to work in a little test DB I created in Access 2007 by linking the field containing the path of the image to the control source of an image object on a continuous subform. This enabled me to link the criteria of the subform's data source query to objects in the header form, which the user can then change to filter out unwanted results. The records in the subform below then show their associated images.

However, using a continuous subform I can only display one column of records which continues for multiple rows. Is there anyway to display the records accross the page as well as down it? If there is no way to do so in the Access form builder (which unfortunately I suspect to be the case,) then how could I get around this? I've been trying to think about ways of manipulating the query, so that each row of the results would contain multiple records, and I've also thought about creating a separate form in Visual Basic 6.0 and linking the data in, but I've not come up with anything yet. Can anyone offer me any advice?

Thank you,

Matthew

 

[M_S_Jones]

Just a quick update: I've looked at returning four records per row in the query (and subsequently the continuous form,) and with the quantity of data that I have in the database at the moment it doesn't seem particularly slow. What does seem slow is the rendering of the image on screen (the path can be returned surprisingly quickly, all things considered.) I also made a continuous form that just displayed one record per row and this seems quite slow to render the images too. Is there any way of speeding this process up? Or would I be best to look at a different technology, something browser-based perhaps?

Thanks,

Matthew

 

[DCrake]

If you want a VB6.0 project for a thumbnail viewer I can supply you with one. It is not my own but one I have used in the past. You could modify the code to point to your backend or folder location and compile it into an exe. Or to take it to the extreem you could cut and paste it into an Access mdb with minor modifications. Let me know if you want it.

An alternative is to visithttp://www.planetsourcecode.com and search there for vb apps.

David

 

[M_S_Jones]

Hi David,

Thank you very much for your reply. I have tried downloading several VB image viewers but none of the ones that I downloaded offered the facility to preview multiple images on screen and select images from there. However, on the website that you gave me the link to I found the following:

http://www.planetsourcecode.com/vb/scripts/ShowCode.asp?txtCodeId=6029&lngWId=1

It certainly looks like something that I could use as a template for what I'm hoping to achieve, is the one that you have similar? If I wanted to add that screen with the multiple images to Access, should I attempt to add it to an Access form, or would I be best to use the VB form and just add buttons to navigate between it and the Access forms?

Thanks,

Matthew