Northwind Customer Order Form

In the Northwind Customer Order Form, if you click OrderID, advice appears in
the bottom of the screen (not sure what this area is actually called). It
says 'Unique order number'. I find this useful guidance for the user but
wasn't sure how to implement it. Any ideas?

Another thing I wondered is if there is any way to shade the orderID column
in a subform, to very clearly indicate that this is not a column into which
you enter data, but is in fact autonumbered?

Which version of the Northwind database are you using? In my A2002 copy,
the OrderID field is not enabled in the Orders form, and does not even
appear in the subform.

Apart from that, I suspect that you're asking about the information that
appears in the status bar, at the very bottom (left) of the Access
application window. There are several ways of setting/controlling this
information.

First, the property which controls this is the ControlTip Text property for
the active control on the form. This is available on the Other tab of the
property dialog box.

Second, the default is that the ControlTip Text property for a control bound
to a field in the form's table/query recordsource will be the entry in the
Description in the underlying table. If this is empty, the status bar will
display "Form View", unless you change the string in the ControlTip Text
property.

Third, you can set this property via code by referring to the control's
StatusBarText property.

Re-reading your question, I see that the second part may be interpreted as a
more general question, rather than relating specifically to the Northwind
database. If that's the case, my advice is as follows:

You would normally not display the OrderID field in the subform; if you have
a control for it (which is not strictly necessary, but can be helpful,
particularly during development when you are checking what's happening) set
the control's Visible property to No. [Note: my practice is to do this, and
also to set the background colour of the control to something distinctive -
I use a pink shade - so that when I open the form in design view I can
immediately see which controls/fields are not visible to users.] Or, if you
think that you should show an autonumber field to the users (again, normally
not what you should be doing - autonumber fields really only have meaning to
the database itself), then set the Enabled property of the control to No,
and/or the Locked property of the control to Yes.

HTH,

Rob


"C Tate" wrote in message
...
In the Northwind Customer Order Form, if you click OrderID, advice appears
in
the bottom of the screen (not sure what this area is actually called). It
says 'Unique order number'. I find this useful guidance for the user but
wasn't sure how to implement it. Any ideas?

Another thing I wondered is if there is any way to shade the orderID
column
in a subform, to very clearly indicate that this is not a column into
which
you enter data, but is in fact autonumbered?

Thanks for all that useful information - much appreciated.

"Rob Parker" wrote:

Which version of the Northwind database are you using? In my A2002 copy,
the OrderID field is not enabled in the Orders form, and does not even
appear in the subform.

Apart from that, I suspect that you're asking about the information that
appears in the status bar, at the very bottom (left) of the Access
application window. There are several ways of setting/controlling this
information.

First, the property which controls this is the ControlTip Text property for
the active control on the form. This is available on the Other tab of the
property dialog box.

Second, the default is that the ControlTip Text property for a control bound
to a field in the form's table/query recordsource will be the entry in the
Description in the underlying table. If this is empty, the status bar will
display "Form View", unless you change the string in the ControlTip Text
property.

Third, you can set this property via code by referring to the control's
StatusBarText property.

Re-reading your question, I see that the second part may be interpreted as a
more general question, rather than relating specifically to the Northwind
database. If that's the case, my advice is as follows:

You would normally not display the OrderID field in the subform; if you have
a control for it (which is not strictly necessary, but can be helpful,
particularly during development when you are checking what's happening) set
the control's Visible property to No. [Note: my practice is to do this, and
also to set the background colour of the control to something distinctive -
I use a pink shade - so that when I open the form in design view I can
immediately see which controls/fields are not visible to users.] Or, if you
think that you should show an autonumber field to the users (again, normally
not what you should be doing - autonumber fields really only have meaning to
the database itself), then set the Enabled property of the control to No,
and/or the Locked property of the control to Yes.

HTH,

Rob


"C Tate" wrote in message
...
In the Northwind Customer Order Form, if you click OrderID, advice appears
in
the bottom of the screen (not sure what this area is actually called). It
says 'Unique order number'. I find this useful guidance for the user but
wasn't sure how to implement it. Any ideas?

Another thing I wondered is if there is any way to shade the orderID
column
in a subform, to very clearly indicate that this is not a column into
which
you enter data, but is in fact autonumbered?