subforms on a continuous form. (1 Viewer)

[suepowell]

Access doesn't allow subforms on a continuous form.

Is there any way round this?

Thanks for your thoughts.

Sue

 

[RuralGuy]

Hi Sue,
Maybe if you described what data you were trying to display and how they relate to each other, someone will come up with another solution for you.

 

[boblarson]

Access doesn't allow subforms on a continuous form.

Is there any way round this?

Thanks for your thoughts.

Sue

Just to explain a little why that isn't allowed by Access. Subforms are meant to display the many in a one-to-many relationship. So, Access has it set so that you can't use subforms with continuous forms or forms in Datasheet mode since the assumption is made that you will only be dealing with that one record at a time in the main form while displaying the subform, which can be in any form view type.

Also, in Continuous form view, the controls that are shown are just the same control, but made to look like they are more than the one by the way Access works the recordset and fills the "clones" so-to-speak of the controls. The processing that would need to occur, and drain on resources if Access was to try to duplicate an entire subform across many records like that makes it very impractible in a system viewpoint as well. The system resources required would likely slow everything down to a crawl and I don't think you'd want to have to wait 30 seconds for every change in control or record, eh?

So, as RG has stated, state what you want to achieve and we'll help try to figure out another, more practical, solution.

 

[suepowell]

Hi thanks for the reply.

I can find my way round the problem, but having a continuous form on a continuous form would just be neat and simple for the user.

I have an input form which just holds a persons name in a single field, and a subform which holds the names of the departments they are involved in, usually between 1 and 3. They are linked by the persons name.

I could just allow up to 3 departments and keep all the data in the same table, but having related tables is more correct and allows for the one perosn who is everywhere!

Beacuse of the relatively small amount of data I would like to be able to show it on one page, rather than having to click through the records.

I guess I'll have to use a single form with continuous subform and put some nice record finding buttons on it.

I just wondered if someone had come up with a neat trick to get round the problem, but I wasn't very hopeful.

Thanks anyway.

Sue

 

[RuralGuy]

You can place two SubForms on a MainForm and have SubForm2 linked to SubForm1 and SubForm1 linked to the MainForm. Both SubForms can be Continuous forms. Would that work for you?

 

[Rich]

You can have a subform on a continuous form, but will users realise what they're looking at?

 

[boblarson]

You can have a subform on a continuous form, but will users realise what they're looking at?

All I can say to that is:

 

[Rich]

I think we've agreed before that what Microsoft know about its product is rather pathetic, I have posted examples of a subform on a continuous form here before

 

[boblarson]

Well I haven't gotten one to work before - I always get that error. Do you have any idea of a key word I can try to search for one of those samples?

 

[Rich]

Very quick and dirty

 

[boblarson]

Interesting. I'll be checking this out further. Thanks Rich!

 

[dfenton]

You can have a subform on a continuous form, but will users realise what they're looking at?

Your example is a subform in the footer of a continuous form, which is not the same thing as having a subform in the *detail* of a continuous form. It's what I'd consider a good choice, as long as you format our continuous form to look like a picklist (and make it non-editable).

And there's actually a way to do it that works:

1. create a parent form with the data.

2. place a continuous subform on the main form linked on the appropriate field.

3. view the main form as a DATASHEET.

With the subdatasheet function on a form that is viewed as a datasheet, you get the subform displayed from the main form and if you expand all the subdatasheets, you can see multiple child records in at a time for different parent records.

Not as pretty, perhaps, but it does display the continuous form on the detail of the equivalent of a continuous form. And it's crystal clear how the parts relate to each other.

--
David W. Fenton
David Fenton Associates
http://dfenton.com/DFA/