record notes

[warco]

In my lab database i was wondering if there was any way to attach a note in the form to certain compounds so when they are entered, a pop up can let the user know some information specifically about this compound and its allowed field values. A restriction for certain fields could also work. For example when a compound has a property which may exceed the allowed range it is given a "yes" under the reject field. It may sound tedious, but I would only be attaching notes like this to a few compounds. Im not even sure if access has this capability, but any help would be appreciated.

 

[Jack Cowley]

The basic answer is yes. You can use code to see if the comments field contains data when a compound is added/selected and if it does pop up a message box stating so.

hth,
Jack

 

[warco]

that is good to know, but writing code is very new to me. Is there any way to give me an idea of what I need to do to create these notes. Thank you.

 

[Jack Cowley]

In your table of compounds you can add a Note field where you will add the notes you want the user to see if they select that compond. If you used a combo box to display your compounds for your user to select you could have code like this in the After Update event of the combo box:

If Me.ComboBoxName.Column(x) <> "" Then
MsgBox Me.ComboBoxName.Column(x)
End If

I have assumed that the Note field is part of the Table or Query that is the the Row Source for the combo box. In the above code change the name of the combo box to the actual name of your combo box and set x to be one less than the actual physical column in your combo. I.e. if Notes is the 3rd column in the combo boxes Row Source then replace the x with 2.

There are other ways to do this but since I haven't a clue has to how you will allow users to select a compound this was my solution.

hth,
Jack

 

[warco]

my users enter the compound in a textbox. I would use a combo box, but there are just too many compounds to search through. Your solution does make sense though. I do have a comments box which would work fine to display my notes.

 

[Jack Cowley]

If you have tens of thousands of compounds then there are ways to still use a combo box. If you only have a few thousand then when the user starts to type the compound into the combo box it will automatically go to the first record it finds based on the character your user enters. The more characters they enter the closer the combo box gets to the desired compound. I would suggest using a combo box as this will eliminate typing errors, etc...

Jack