Modernizing The Microsoft Access Interface!

[NauticalGent]

Daniel Pinault is working on some new ideas. Worth checking out...

 

[tvanstiphout]

Would be good to post this in the User Interface thread we had a few months ago.

 

[Jason Lee Hayes]

This is a game changer for me; just about to update an old DB that relies on the legacy switchboard and was contemplating my options. Daniel never fails to impress... Thanks for sharing..

 

[Jason Lee Hayes]

Have you looked at any of my examples that use two of the old versions plus other takes on the concept? There's lots of layout improvements you can make. What I like is the data driven aspect that most replacements ignore.

Must have missed it Pat; have you a link please?

 

[DickyP]

It's just my opinion but personally I believe the proposed new interface looks dreadful. And who uses a switchboard anymore - far, far tooooo constricting.

 

[Jason Lee Hayes]

There's two databases. One also includes basic security. There are several variants of both the fixed list and continuous versions of the switchboard but the continuous version has been converted from macros to VBA. One of the variations uses big buttons, There is also a completely custom version that you can format however you like but which is still based on the table concept of the switchboard.

Replacement Switchboard

This Switchboard form is based on the last VBA version which I think was A2k. I expanded it to allow for 12 items rather than 8 and you can easily change it to do more. I've included directions. This updated version has two switchboards. One more traditional and the other is big buttons...

www.access-programmers.co.uk

Switchboard with simple security

This is a custom switchboard. It expands on the Switchboard Items table to add four additional columns to define view/edit/add/delete security levels for switchboard items and forms/reports referenced by them. It includes tables to manage users and also to assign them security levels. The user...

www.access-programmers.co.uk

Hi Pat, i can see quite a lot of work has gone into that... You have made something very useful and easy to understand. Thanks for sharing.

 

[gemma-the-husky]

It's just my opinion but personally I believe the proposed new interface looks dreadful. And who uses a switchboard anymore - far, far tooooo constricting.

It probably depends on the application. For a company accounting type package a switchboard is easy to follow and can build a large number of options into a standard framework. There aren't menu programmes that don't have a menu driven interface of some sort.

 

[Jason Lee Hayes]

It's just my opinion but personally I believe the proposed new interface looks dreadful. And who uses a switchboard anymore - far, far tooooo constricting.

You would be surprised; the application i developed back in 2006 never needed updating and customers were more than happy never requested a change as it was simple to navigate... Life in the old dog yet lol

 

[Jason Lee Hayes]

How is it constricting when it is data driven? You can make it look however you want it to look. The POINT is that you get to change data to rearrange it.

Yes, DickyP i think has not understood what has been achieved. With Daniels demo he is merely demonstrating a few examples of what can be done. There is no limit to what can be achieved as far as the looks only your imagination.

 

[Edgar_]

Hmm, I didn't see that he was using external files for the menu.

Maybe I should post an example of how one could populate a table and have the menu items showed within Access without external HTML files.

 

[Edgar_]

It took longer than expected but hey

Anyway, I'll add support for submenus some other time, this is just a proof of concept

 

[Mike Krailo]

Edgar, I tried your example but get the following error: Runtime error 5, invalid procedure call or argument:

 

[NauticalGent]

Edgar, I tried your example but get the following error: Runtime error 5, invalid procedure call or argument:
View attachment 114452

Same for me. I commented that line and it moved to the next one with the same error.

 

[Mike Krailo]

I couldn't get any of Daniel's demo files to work at all. No errors, just no menu's as shown on his website. Does it matter what the default browser of the system is? I'm using the Brave browser on Windows 11. I wouldn't think so if it is using the internal web browser control.

I had a menu system that I was working on that looked very close to his first example that doesn't use any html. I unfortunately lost all my source files on the one and only thumb drive that had all my important files on them. It was a lot of work to get it working but the real challenge was making it flexible and easy to recreate or modify.

The individual html files do load on their own and display properly, but not from within the app.

 

[NauticalGent]

I haven't tried any of his concepts/code yet. He did do a YouTube video (haven't watched it yet) that might me more explanatory...

 

[Josef P.]

I couldn't get any of Daniel's demo files to work at all. No errors, just no menu's as shown on his website.

The path to html files is fixed and will probably not match the storage location you are using.

 

[Mike Krailo]

The path to html files is fixed and will probably not match the storage location you are using.

Yes I figured that out right after I posted and watched the video on it. I'll update the path and see how it goes. That sure would be a problem when you go to move the database to some other location. It would be better to imbed the files into access attachment field so it never changes.

 

[Edgar_]

@Mike Krailo
@NauticalGent
Thanks for testing. Please review if adding this registry key helps, I often forget most people do not have it enabled.
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4456490/how-to-set-feature-browser-emulation-to-ie8-mode

To run a WebBrowser control in IE11 Standards Mode, use the following new value into the registry:

32 bits: [(HKEY_CURRENT_USER or HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE)\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\FeatureControl\FEATURE_BROWSER_EMULATION]

64 bits: [(HKEY_CURRENT_USER or HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE)\Software\wow6432node\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\FeatureControl\FEATURE_BROWSER_EMULATION]
"MSAccess.exe" = dword 11000 (Hex: 0x2af8)

Mine looks like this for A2021:

And like this for A2016

This is what the web browser control should be showing:

Since the line you're highlighting has something to do with styling, maybe writing the rules directly will work. I'll try to add an example later.

 

[Mike Krailo]

I would rather not use that emulation mode for now, but I see what you are doing Edgar.

I'm still having trouble getting Daniel's local files demo's to work. I can get the first part of the menu to display but none of the click events work. Anyone have any idea why the click events would not fire at all? The web-resources demo works perfectly, it's just the local file version that I cannot get working.

 

[CJ_London]

maybe writing the rules directly will work. I'll try to add an example later.

I'm developing an image cataloguer (to be demoed in November at the Eur AUG) and using a web control for some of the navigation - primary of the images since using an image control creates too much flickering on scrolling and image controls can't receive the focus.

My technique is to store the html in a long text field. The code contains placeholders to repeat code for each image when VBA is used to create the final html to be assigned to the web control.

As well as positioning, the html contains scripts to run VBA functions and return variables (such as mouse position over an image, imageID, etc.

The VBA code works on the basis of a user selecting a folder, the code then loops through the files in the folder and returns images found. and creating the html. In the case of a menu, perhaps loops through a table of menu options.

So don't know it it helps or is of interest - this is example script for the variables and function calls

<script>
    function displayImageSrc(element, event) {
      var imageSrc = element.id;
      var xp = event.clientX; // Get the horizontal coordinate of the mouse pointer
      var yp = event.clientY; // Get the vertical coordinate of the mouse pointer
      var x = element.getBoundingClientRect().left; // Get the horizontal coordinate of the mouse pointer
      var y = element.getBoundingClientRect().top; // Get the vertical coordinate of the mouse pointer
      //var w=element.getBoundingClientRect().width;
      var clickedImageSrcElement = document.getElementById('clickedImageSrc');
      if (clickedImageSrcElement) {
       // clickedImageSrcElement.value = "Image ID: " + imageSrc + ", X: " + x + ", Y: " + y ;
        clickedImageSrcElement.value = imageSrc + "," + x + "," + y + "," + xp + "," + yp ;
        //alert('web source: ' + clickedImageSrcElement.value);
      }
    }
  </script>

<title>Image Click Event</title>
  <script>
    function imageClicked(imageId) {
      // Call the VBA function to switch focus to another form
      //window.external.form_frmdragimg_detail_mousemove(1,0,xp, yp);
    }
  </script>

and this is example html in the repeating section to enable them

<img border=0 hspace=0  draggable='false' ID='PK' alt='' src='File://txtFile' height='150' onmousemove='displayImageSrc(this, event)' onmousedown="imageClicked('PK')">

<!-- Hidden input field to store the source URL of the clicked image -->
<input type="hidden" id="clickedImageSrc">

The vba code replaces 'PK' and 'txtFile' with appropriate values for each image as it loops.