How to alter combo box style?

[purchaandr]

Hey there once again guys!

I have some combo boxes on my form, I have them displaying everything Correctly and working well. However, I would like to remove the option to be able to actually drop down the combo box. What I mean is taking away the arrow which allows you to do so. I'm not very familiar with Access but am aware that in Visual Studio there is a simple option in the properties window! I cant seem to find it in Access!

Much help would be appreciated, my last problem posted was a very simple fix which you guys managed to sort out for me very easily and i think this may be a simple fix as well!

Thanks alot,

Andrew

 

[boblarson]

Sorry, that property doesn't exist in Access. Why would you remove the arrow anyway? Perhaps if you give the reason we can come up with an alternative to what you are looking to do which will give the same result.

 

[purchaandr]

Hey there Bob,

Haha I shouldn't have spent so much time looking then!

On my Activities form the user can add a Company from the company table to the Activities form.

There are going to be quite a few companies to choose from so I have included a button next to the Company ID Combo box to let them run a search. The search is Returned in a list box where the ID and the company name is shown, and when they click on their choice it auto populates the company combo box.

I just wanted to remove the drop down element as it means there is one less thing to play with and the users have to use my search.

 

[boblarson]

Since you do want to store the ID and not the description, a combo is proper, but I would hide the combo then and put a text box in its place. Then you can set the control source of the text box to

=[Forms]![YourFormName]![YourComboBoxName].[Column](1)

And that should populate the text box with the description every time you use the search feature which populates the combo. And, best of all - no arrow.

 

[purchaandr]

so you reckon that I have both a combo and a text box? the combo box can be invisible and just be passing values to the text box? I have done similar things in my DB already but was just wondering is it an acceptable programming practice?

 

[boblarson]

so you reckon that I have both a combo and a text box? the combo box can be invisible and just be passing values to the text box? I have done similar things in my DB already but was just wondering is it an acceptable programming practice?

Sometimes you have to get "creative" if you want certain visual aspects within Access.

 

[purchaandr]

Haha i get what you mean. I'm not a frequent user of access, but cheers for your help! I would probably still be looking through the property box!