Question Replace several Access controls with ActiveX control?

[BiigJiim]

Hi,

I am writing an application in Access 2003 which involves a live ticketing system. There are 3 or 4 terminals which each have a main screen showing live up-to-date information on a number of active tickets. The screen is continually refreshed.

Each ticket has several pieces of information, such as name, ticket number, start time, car registration, price etc. which need to be displayed, using different colours, font sizes etc. Some are text fields, some are just Yes/No inidicators etc. e.g. the Status of each ticket is shown using background colour. Up to 25 tickets can be displayed at a time on the screen.

Because the application is optimised for touchscreen, where the user needs to touch a ticket to go to the next screen, the tickets are not laid out in tabular format, but are at present clusters of controls laid out in a 5x5 grid. As each ticket 'cluster' has about 10 controls (some of which overlap), this means 250+ controls on the form. The controls are all unbound, and are populated and displayed using vba and a recordset.
As I have vb6 I am considering creating an activex control to represent each ticket, replacing the cluster of controls. Each control would have several properties to store and display each piece of ticket information. Each control would only need one event - on_click.

The idea is to simplify the Access form (25 controls instead of 250) and the vba code (e.g. if only 15 tickets exist, I only have to hide 10 active x controls rather than loop through the clusters of controls currently.) There are also 4 different screens which have to display ticket information, so having a single activex control would standardise things.

However I have never created an active x control for Access. Is this a BAD idea or not? What are the advantages and disadvantages? Would it have an impact on performance? Any insight would be VERY much appreciated.

Thank you,
Jim

 

[Pat Hartman]

Welcome Aboard
I would guess that very few Access developers have created an activeX control since they can't be created by Access.

You could probably achieve some of your goals by simply breaking the form up into multiple subforms. As it stands now, your form is unbound. If you used subforms, you could actually bind the forms and eliminate large amounts of code.

I'd be interested in seeing a picture of your form. Can you post one please?

 

[BiigJiim]

Hi Pat,

Thanks for your post. I would be creating the activeX in vb6 so that wouldn't be a problem. I just dont know if it is the wrong track to go down.

Attached is a mock up screen print of my form in design view. Most of the controls are unbound and are populated through vba code accessing a recordset.

Cheers,
Jim

 

[Pat Hartman]

I prefer to not write code to replicate Access functionality so I would make an effort to use bound forms which as I said solves much of your problem.

Creating a "square" isn't possible directly but I have done it with a subform for each vertical set. So, your form would need 5 subforms. But that's a small price to pay given they can all be bound.