Form Design Text Area Multi Use

[Dogberry]

Hi
Very new to access and no VBA skills (yet). I am trying to design a form with a text area that will display different information depending on the button pressed.

Is this possible and how would I achieve this. Please remember in your replies that I am very new to access.

Thank you for taking the time to answer.

Dogberry

 

[Ranman256]

yes. But since you didnt elaborate, thats as much as I can give.

 

[Dogberry]

As I said I am new do not really know what information you require but her indoors wants a database for her plants. The idea is the plant is called up and then in the multi use text area she can see such things as time to plant, benefits, soil conditions, ailments, etc.

The categories would come from separate tables

Thanks

Dogberry

 

[Minty]

I would post up your table design, as I think you may already be heading down a wrong route.
If you have different types of data related to the same thing, you probably want them in the same table with a identifier for the type, rather than different tables.

 

[Dogberry]

Hi Minty
Everything is on paper at the moment as it is very much in the planning mode and hence the question.

Can you expand on what you mean by identifier. I have a copy of Access Bible 2016 to help me but I cannot see anything referring to this.

Thanks

Dogberry

 

[Minty]

Have a read here http://rogersaccessblog.blogspot.co.uk/2008/12/what-is-normalization-part-i.html

Paper is the right place to start - If you can't write it down on paper then you can't do it in Access!

My concern is that I don't think your Categories should be separate tables, I think that you should have a generic list of Items and assign a category to that list. Something like

tblInformation
InfoID - Primary key - Autonumber
CategoryID - Foreign Key - Number from the categories table
txtInformation - Text field
UpdateDate - DateTime Field - just to record when it was entered or last updated

tblPlants
PlantID - Primary key - Autonumber
PlantName
Genus
OtherPlantInfo....

tblCategories
CategoryID - Primary key - Autonumber
txtCategory - Text - Brief text of your category
txtDescription - Text - longer descritption in case you need it

tblPlantInfo - This is where you link your tblPlant and table information
PlantInfoID Primary key - Autonumber
PlantID - Foreign Key - Number from tblPLants
InfoID - Foreign Key - Number from tblInformation

 

[Dogberry]

Thanks for giving your time Minty I have a correct direction to go in now and your post will resolve a lot of my problems.

Dogberry

 

[Minty]

No problem, do what you said - design the thing on paper. Think about what you need to do / display / report on, then work backwards to work out what you will need to store to achieve that.

Make table designs - then if you want post back the table designs/relationships here and we can see any "Gotcha's" that might have slipped in.