Ms Office Tune Up

You use Yes/No fields in tables when you have a quantity that you can represent in one of two states: on (Yes, True, or -1) or off (No, False, or 0).

When you create a Yes/No field in the table Design view, the Display Control property (it’s in the Lookup tab) defaults to Check Box. This means that when you add a Yes/No field to a form, Access automatically represents the field with a check box control (along with a label that displays the name of the field or the field’s Caption property). For some­thing a bit different, you can use a toggle button, instead. A toggle button is a cross between a check box and a command button: Click it once, and the button stays pressed; click it again, and the button returns to its normal state. The button can either display a caption or a picture. Here are the steps to follow to insert a toggle button and bind it to a Yes/No field:

1. In the Design tab’s Controls group, click Toggle Button.
2. Draw the toggle button on the form.
3. Choose Design, Property Sheet to open the Property Sheet pane.
4. In the Format tab, you have two choices that determine what appears on the face of the button:
   • Caption-Use this property to specify text that displays on the face of the button. (For clarity, it’s best to use the name of the Yes/No field.)
   • Picture-Use this property to specify an image that displays on the button face. Click the ellipsis button (…) to display the Picture Builder dialog box, shown in Figure 1. Either use the Available Pictures list to click an image or click Browse to choose an image from the Select Picture dialog box (although note that Access can use only BMP or icon files).

CAUTION

If you want to use a custom picture, bear in mind that if the image is larger than the toggle button, Access won’t shrink the image to fit inside the button-it just centers the image in the button and displays as much as can fit.Therefore,always choose a bitmap or icon that is the same size or smaller than the toggle button.

TIP

It’s often useful to have the toggle button’s caption or picture change as the button’s state changes. For example, you could change the caption to Onwhen the button is pressed and change it to Offwhen the button isn’t pressed.To set this up, display the button’s Property Sheet, select the Event tab, click inside the After Update property, click the ellipsis button (…), and then click Code Builder. Use the AfterUpdateevent handler to change the button’s Caption or Pictureproperty depending on the button’s current Value. Here’s an example:

Private Sub Toggle0_AfterUpdate()
If Toggle0.Value = True Then
Toggle0.Caption = “On”
Else
Toggle0.Caption = “Off”
End If
End Sub


Figure 1 Use the Picture Builder dialog box to choose an image to display on the face of the toggle button.

5. In the Data tab, use the Control Source property to choose the name of the Yes/No field you want bound to the toggle button.
6. In the Default Value property, enter the initial value for new records. For the “pressed” state, use Yes, True, or -1; for the “unpressed” state, use No, False, or 0.

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