The Other Properties of a Form

As described in Hour 11, Format properties affect the appearance of a form and Data properties affect the data underlying a form. This hour focuses on the Other properties of a form. As you'll see, although these properties don't fit neatly into the Format and Data categories, they are extremely robust and powerful properties. To access these properties, you use the form selector (the intersection between the horizontal and vertical rulers) to select the form, open the Properties window, and click the Other tab of the Properties window (see Figure 16.1). The following sections describe the Other properties.

Pop Up

The Pop Up property indicates whether a form always remains on top of other windows. You will often set this property, along with the Modal property (discussed next), to Yes when creating custom dialog boxes.

Modal

The Modal property indicates whether the user can remove focus from a form while it's open. When the Modal property is set to Yes, the user must close the form before he or she can continue working with the application. As mentioned earlier, this property is used with the Pop Up property to create custom dialog boxes.

Cycle

The Cycle property controls the behavior of the Tab key in a form. The settings are All Records, Current Record, and Current Page. When you set the Cycle property to All Records, the user moves to the next record on a form when he or she presses Tab from the last control on the previous record. When the property is set to Current Record, the user is moved from the last control on a form to the first control on the same record. The Current Page option refers only to multipage forms; when you set the Cycle property to Current Page, the user tabs from the last control on the page to the first control on the same page. All three options are affected by the tab order of the objects on the form.

Menu Bar

The Menu Bar property specifies a menu bar associated with a form. The menu bar, sometimes referred to as a command bar in Access 2002 and Access 2003, is created by using the Customize dialog box. You reach this dialog box by choosing View | Toolbars | Customize. Hour 24, "Finishing Touches," covers the process of creating menus.

Toolbar

The Toolbar property designates a toolbar associated with a form. The toolbar, sometimes referred to as a command bar in Access 2002 and Access 2003, is created by using the Customize dialog box. The toolbar you select is displayed whenever the form has the focus. Hour 24 covers toolbars.

Shortcut Menu and Shortcut Menu Bar

The Shortcut Menu property indicates whether a shortcut menu displays when the user clicks with the right mouse button over an object on a form. The Shortcut Menu Bar property lets you associate a custom menu with a control on the form or with the form itself. As with a standard menu bar, you create a shortcut menu bar by choosing View | Toolbars | Customize. Hour 24 covers shortcut menus.

Fast Laser Printing

The Fast Laser Printing property determines whether lines and rectangles print along with a form. When you set this property to Yes, you see a definite improvement when printing the form on a laser printer.

Help File and Help Context ID

The Help File and Help Context ID properties are used to associate a specific Help file and topic with a form.

Tag

The Tag property is used to store miscellaneous information about a form. This property is often set and monitored at runtime to store necessary information about a form. You could use the Tag property to add a tag to each of several forms that should be unloaded as a group.

Has Module

The Has Module property determines whether a form has a class module. If no code is associated with a form, setting this property to No can noticeably decrease load time and improve the form's performance while decreasing the database's size.

Allow Design Changes

The Allow Design Changes property determines whether changes can be made to the design of a form while you're viewing form data. If this property is set to All Views, the Properties window is available in Form view, and changes made to form properties while you're in Form view are permanent if the form is saved.