Tooltip/popup textbox/floating text box?

[Mozzie]

Hi all,

I have a report that lists incidents for a specific day (reference number, a brief description and a few other fields). There is also an additional notes field, which I would like to be viewable from within the report.

For example, as a tooltip when the mouse hovers over the brief description text box. Or displayed in a textbox on the right (I don't want one textbox per line though, but instead a single re-usable textbox). Or a more information button/link that shows a "popup" containing the additional notes. I don't want to exit out of the current report, but stay within it.

I have tried to achieve this with a tooltip, but in fact even when I manually typed in a tooltip on the control's properties it wasn't displayed when I hovered over the text box.

Any ideas how to achieve one of those? A pop-up or floating textbox would be preferable, but otherwise any other suitable solution.

Regards,

Mozzie

 

[vbaInet]

In Print Preview the Control Tip Text won't work. It's like trying to create one for a pdf document, it's non existent. Preview is meant to be a read-only document no fuss document.

Now if you've got one of the newer versions of Access the Control Tip Text will work in Report View.

On the other hand, use a form, lock the fields and put the Control Tip Text there.

 

[Mozzie]

In Print Preview the Control Tip Text won't work. It's like trying to create one for a pdf document, it's non existent. Preview is meant to be a read-only document no fuss document.

Now if you've got one of the newer versions of Access the Control Tip Text will work in Report View.

On the other hand, use a form, lock the fields and put the Control Tip Text there.

I'm using Access 2010, although I can upgrade to whatever the newest version is.

Ah, I see, the Control Text Tip has a delay. I wasn't patient enough.

Would there be any way (in report view, ideally, or a form) to have a pop-up box or a single box floating to the right to contain this additional text?

 

[vbaInet]

It would be re-inventing the wheel. Control Tool Tip text were built for that purpose. You could however create a textbox in the Report's Footer section and use that to fill in additional information.

 

[Mozzie]

The tool tip text has some limitations, such as the delay (which doesn't seem to be possible to change) and a length limit of 255 characters.

A possible workaround might be to use VBA to show/hide a text box only for incidents with additional notes.

I'll try that now.

 

[vbaInet]

Making a textbox visible or hidden isn't the issue here. When a Control Tip Text was developed they had to deal with several issues:

1. How do we get it's current position in relation to the current record that's being hovered over?
2. What would be the dynamic Left and Top properties?
3. What would be the dynamic Height and Width?
4. How should the textbox dynamically Grow and Shrink in relation to
i. the number of characters required
ii. it's current position, for example if the textbox is to the far right hand side it should grow downwards and shrink horizontally.

All of this happens in real time.

 

[Mozzie]

I made an alternative, a text box that is barely visible, but grows when there is content.

 

[vbaInet]

Can we see a screenshot?

 

[Mozzie]

I'm not sure how well a screenshot would illustrate it. On the form design I set a text box (placed below the brief description text box) height to zero and set can grow to yes. No borders. So if there aren't any additional notes, it remains hidden (so there isn't a big gap between each line for incidents that don't have any additional notes). So, it's not a floating or popup, but a reasonable solution.

 

[vbaInet]

Sounds reasonable. Good job!