drawing graphics/objects

[KimDS]

I am making a form to calculate beam positions for wooden pallets. There are some positions on which it is not allowed to have beams. The sofware takes this into account.

For a visual check I would like to draw the forbidden zones and the beams of the pallet. Basically I would like to draw some squares and rectangles based on the calculated numbers and positions.

Any ideas how to draw such easy schematics on a form? Can this be done with standard Access or do I need a module? I currently using Access 2003)

Thanks for the advice!

 

[ChrisO]

Hi Kim.

There are two basic ways to ‘draw’ on Forms and I suspect you may eventually want to reproduce it on Reports.

Forms are more difficult than Reports because Access does not like using the draw commands available for Reports in Forms.

Depends on what you want to ‘draw’ but one method is to create a large number of invisible Labels and position them under program control (VBA). You could then set them to visible and change their colour or other properties, if you like. You can also use their events if you wish to activate the objects.
http://www.access-programmers.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=228040
There is a limit of about 750 controls which can exist on a Form but you can get around that by using subforms.



Another method is to actually draw the objects based on Stephen Lebans’ Image Class.
http://www.access-programmers.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=214369


Both will require quite a lot of VBA but it is certainly doable. One place to start is to first rough out the overall drawing in Word. See how big it is and how complicated it will look. When you have that done you can decide if you want to do it in Access.

Chris.