Switchboard vs Form

[holden_1]

What advantages are there of using a switchboard compared to creating a form with buttons to open the other forms?

Basically, why use a switchboard?

Cheers,

Rob

 

[statsman]

I personally feel the switchboard is to assist people who aren't that familiar with Access.

It does seem that as you gain greater experience, most users abandon the switchboard in favour of using a form customized to their preferences.

 

[missinglinq]

I think a standard form offers more control and flexibility in a more straightforward manner. Switchboards offer a very limited number of options. You can open forms in AddMode and EditMode, but no in Datasheet view. You can run code, but only if it resides in a function. You can go inside, wade thru a lot of often times incomprehensible code, and change all of this, but if you're going to do that, why not simply use a standard form to begin with? Everytime you press a button on a switchboard it opens up a recordset/table.

As statsman said, they're really for people with little experience who aren't really doing much. I answer questions on 4-5 Access forums, and Switchboards are one of two subjects (the other being Macros) that consistently go unanswered, simply because most people have no experience with them. And the more serious/experienced the poster/developer is, the more true this is.

 

[dkinley]

I think a standard form offers more control and flexibility in a more straightforward manner. Switchboards offer a very limited number of options.

Ditto. Why start out limiting yourself from the get-go if you knowingly have to eventually remake this form for expanded capabilities later?

I guess there is nothing wrong with using one as a placeholder as you develop the rest of the database but as I work I realize that 'Oh, that is something I want to add to my switchboard' and I can't because it doesn't support what I want to do.

I have found that once you develop your first one, you pretty much copy and paste that form as your placeholder and customize it as you go on a new project exactly as you would a regular ole switchboard.

-dK

 

[gemma-the-husky]

a switchboard IS a form with buttons to open other forms

the problems start if you have say, 50 or more forms. How do you offer all the options to your users.

you need a way of being able to offer say 6 options initially, and then expand these options to suboptions. The (MS) switchboard does this in a fairly elegant way, and lets you have any number of hierarchical menu options, as each level of menus reuses the buttons on the switchboard form - its a lot easier to manage and add options, then having to manually amend popup forms dealing with different aspects of the system

Very similar to virtually all text based 3GL programs from what I can see.

alternatively, if you get used to programming menubars/toolbars you can offer the same functionality by replacing the access menu bar, with your own bar for the application

I tend to do both, and let the users use which they prefer