object group of hyperlinks

[ledgerr.rob]

Hello~

I have a design problem i can't seem to figure out and am looking for some advice...

I have a DB used for tracking pollution complaints. The structure for this is fairly well set. My question involves hyperlinking to folders of pictures related to each of these complaints.

My initial thought is to create an option group with nothing in it. Then as pictures are taken create a hyperlink that would jump to the folder containing the days pictures (I'll have a separate folder for each day). My minds eye tells me i should be able to count the objects in the group, create a new object and enter the path into it.

I'm thinking of creating a text field that when 'double-clicked' would follow the path and open a windows explorer window.

Some of my questions are:
1) Does this design appear adequate?
2) Should my path be in it's own table or a field in the complaints table?
3) should I make the data type 'text' or 'hyperlink'?
4) Also, thinking about report creation, if i use the above stated design, can i use the images in 'complaint' reports? Can the DB be told how to follow the path and insert those images to an image control in a report?


As may be obvious, this is the first time i've tried to incorporate images into a database. The one think (pending feedback from you) that i know i would like to do is to link to the folder locations rather than enter each photo location to the DB. As far as achieving this i'm not completely sure.

My vba skills are on the verge of knowing how to do this but not quite there....Any advice on design/structure and on vba tactics would be appreciated.

rob

 

[boblarson]

1. Not totally. An Option Group is not the way to go.

2. It should go as a field in the complaints table. If more than one complaint will be opening to the same location then you should have another table which is basically the "Day Header" so you aren't storing the path multiple times. If there is a folder for each complaint then it is good to keep it with the rest of the complaint data.

3. I would use TEXT because it is more versatile. I just use a text box on a form to DISPLAY it as if it were a hyperlink. You can set it to blue, underlined and set the control's IsHyperlink property to YES so that the hand icon will show when you hover over it.

4. Yes, you can use images in your reports. For those it would be much simpler if you stored the actual file location, including file name. But it is not impossible to do otherwise, just a little harder. And, I highly suggest that you do not store the pics as anything higher than a 1024x768 resolution otherwise you may find that the pics show a couple on the report and then the rest go missing (we had that trouble where I worked and setting them to 1024x768 fixed the problem).