Need Flexgrid Guru

To you and David, the monster under the bed with this thing is that I've been
tasked to turn an Excel spreadsheet into an Access tool that, among other
things, gives users a variety of drilldowns at a buttonclick. But they want
it to look as much as possible like the Excel spreadsheet they're used to,
and note the word "tasked" -- they tell, I attempt to do even if that's not
the way I would have designed it. As to logically subdividing the data into
tabs or pages, 36 of the ~40 fields are simply month-by-month dollar figures
for production demand and assets (materials) to satisfy that demand. So
breaking it into logical groups doesn't work very well conceptually, and
doesn't support the old familiar "just scroll to the right" thing they
"enjoyed" in Excel. Sigh ... guess I'll keep thinking, maybe a lightbulb
will go on.

"Keith Wilby" wrote:

"LarryP" wrote in message
news
my #1 problem is
about showing roughly 40 fields of information horizontally, each needing
roughly 1" of screen width.

Schema design issues aside, have you considered arranging this data into
logical groups and putting each group on its own page on a tab control on
the sub-form?

Keith.
www.keithwilby.com

Larry, I feel your pain. I've had to do much the same thing myself over the
past few days using Hierarchial Flexgrid, and when I've posted here asking
for help I've had quite a few replies telling me that my "database design is
flawed" because I'm displaying "too much data", or my "interface is horribly
designed" and that my users will hate me for it. But as it turns out, my
users like the Flexgrid interface more than the original interface I designed
that was somewhat more, shall we say, "Access-expert accepted". Sometimes you
have to just do whatever your too-scared-to-learn-new-things users will have
the shortest time adjusting to. A few people here understand that better than
others. Unfortunately, that usually means we as developers have to work
harder to give the users what they want.

If you're attempting to build what amounts to an Access PivotTable, I can
send you a copy of what I've done and let you modify it however you need... I
just finished building one myself.

"LarryP" wrote:

To you and David, the monster under the bed with this thing is that I've been
tasked to turn an Excel spreadsheet into an Access tool that, among other
things, gives users a variety of drilldowns at a buttonclick. But they want
it to look as much as possible like the Excel spreadsheet they're used to,
and note the word "tasked" -- they tell, I attempt to do even if that's not
the way I would have designed it. As to logically subdividing the data into
tabs or pages, 36 of the ~40 fields are simply month-by-month dollar figures
for production demand and assets (materials) to satisfy that demand. So
breaking it into logical groups doesn't work very well conceptually, and
doesn't support the old familiar "just scroll to the right" thing they
"enjoyed" in Excel. Sigh ... guess I'll keep thinking, maybe a lightbulb
will go on.

"Keith Wilby" wrote:

"LarryP" wrote in message
news
my #1 problem is
about showing roughly 40 fields of information horizontally, each needing
roughly 1" of screen width.

Schema design issues aside, have you considered arranging this data into
logical groups and putting each group on its own page on a tab control on
the sub-form?

Keith.
www.keithwilby.com

Thanks, Nicholas, for the encouraging words. I am usually given a fair bit
of latitude to design from scratch, but now and then I'm handed one with
marching orders to "make it look like what they're already using." In this
case, since I haven't found any good single reference for how to use
FlexGrids, I'm setting up a form that essentially rotates their beloved Excel
display 90 degrees, so the months run top to bottom and the other stuff runs
horizontally, but otherwise it has much the same look. I'm hoping I can get
them to accept at least that much change.

I would, however, be interested in seeing your latest product just to
further my FlexGrid education, and if you know of a good FlexGrid Bible out
there somewhere, please point me to it. ).

"Nicholas Scarpinato" wrote:

Larry, I feel your pain. I've had to do much the same thing myself over the
past few days using Hierarchial Flexgrid, and when I've posted here asking
for help I've had quite a few replies telling me that my "database design is
flawed" because I'm displaying "too much data", or my "interface is horribly
designed" and that my users will hate me for it. But as it turns out, my
users like the Flexgrid interface more than the original interface I designed
that was somewhat more, shall we say, "Access-expert accepted". Sometimes you
have to just do whatever your too-scared-to-learn-new-things users will have
the shortest time adjusting to. A few people here understand that better than
others. Unfortunately, that usually means we as developers have to work
harder to give the users what they want.

If you're attempting to build what amounts to an Access PivotTable, I can
send you a copy of what I've done and let you modify it however you need... I
just finished building one myself.

"LarryP" wrote:

To you and David, the monster under the bed with this thing is that I've been
tasked to turn an Excel spreadsheet into an Access tool that, among other
things, gives users a variety of drilldowns at a buttonclick. But they want
it to look as much as possible like the Excel spreadsheet they're used to,
and note the word "tasked" -- they tell, I attempt to do even if that's not
the way I would have designed it. As to logically subdividing the data into
tabs or pages, 36 of the ~40 fields are simply month-by-month dollar figures
for production demand and assets (materials) to satisfy that demand. So
breaking it into logical groups doesn't work very well conceptually, and
doesn't support the old familiar "just scroll to the right" thing they
"enjoyed" in Excel. Sigh ... guess I'll keep thinking, maybe a lightbulb
will go on.

"Keith Wilby" wrote:

"LarryP" wrote in message
news my #1 problem is
about showing roughly 40 fields of information horizontally, each needing
roughly 1" of screen width.

Schema design issues aside, have you considered arranging this data into
logical groups and putting each group on its own page on a tab control on
the sub-form?

Keith.
www.keithwilby.com

Larry, I'll be sending you an email shortly. What version of Access are you
running, I need to know so I can convert this if necessary as I'm on Access
2007.

"LarryP" wrote:

Thanks, Nicholas, for the encouraging words. I am usually given a fair bit
of latitude to design from scratch, but now and then I'm handed one with
marching orders to "make it look like what they're already using." In this
case, since I haven't found any good single reference for how to use
FlexGrids, I'm setting up a form that essentially rotates their beloved Excel
display 90 degrees, so the months run top to bottom and the other stuff runs
horizontally, but otherwise it has much the same look. I'm hoping I can get
them to accept at least that much change.

I would, however, be interested in seeing your latest product just to
further my FlexGrid education, and if you know of a good FlexGrid Bible out
there somewhere, please point me to it. ).

"Nicholas Scarpinato" wrote:

Larry, I feel your pain. I've had to do much the same thing myself over the
past few days using Hierarchial Flexgrid, and when I've posted here asking
for help I've had quite a few replies telling me that my "database design is
flawed" because I'm displaying "too much data", or my "interface is horribly
designed" and that my users will hate me for it. But as it turns out, my
users like the Flexgrid interface more than the original interface I designed
that was somewhat more, shall we say, "Access-expert accepted". Sometimes you
have to just do whatever your too-scared-to-learn-new-things users will have
the shortest time adjusting to. A few people here understand that better than
others. Unfortunately, that usually means we as developers have to work
harder to give the users what they want.

If you're attempting to build what amounts to an Access PivotTable, I can
send you a copy of what I've done and let you modify it however you need... I
just finished building one myself.

"LarryP" wrote:

To you and David, the monster under the bed with this thing is that I've been
tasked to turn an Excel spreadsheet into an Access tool that, among other
things, gives users a variety of drilldowns at a buttonclick. But they want
it to look as much as possible like the Excel spreadsheet they're used to,
and note the word "tasked" -- they tell, I attempt to do even if that's not
the way I would have designed it. As to logically subdividing the data into
tabs or pages, 36 of the ~40 fields are simply month-by-month dollar figures
for production demand and assets (materials) to satisfy that demand. So
breaking it into logical groups doesn't work very well conceptually, and
doesn't support the old familiar "just scroll to the right" thing they
"enjoyed" in Excel. Sigh ... guess I'll keep thinking, maybe a lightbulb
will go on.

"Keith Wilby" wrote:

"LarryP" wrote in message
news my #1 problem is
about showing roughly 40 fields of information horizontally, each needing
roughly 1" of screen width.

Schema design issues aside, have you considered arranging this data into
logical groups and putting each group on its own page on a tab control on
the sub-form?

Keith.
www.keithwilby.com

I'm developing in 2003, but have both available.

"Nicholas Scarpinato" wrote:

Larry, I'll be sending you an email shortly. What version of Access are you
running, I need to know so I can convert this if necessary as I'm on Access
2007.

"LarryP" wrote:

Thanks, Nicholas, for the encouraging words. I am usually given a fair bit
of latitude to design from scratch, but now and then I'm handed one with
marching orders to "make it look like what they're already using." In this
case, since I haven't found any good single reference for how to use
FlexGrids, I'm setting up a form that essentially rotates their beloved Excel
display 90 degrees, so the months run top to bottom and the other stuff runs
horizontally, but otherwise it has much the same look. I'm hoping I can get
them to accept at least that much change.

I would, however, be interested in seeing your latest product just to
further my FlexGrid education, and if you know of a good FlexGrid Bible out
there somewhere, please point me to it. ).

"Nicholas Scarpinato" wrote:

Larry, I feel your pain. I've had to do much the same thing myself over the
past few days using Hierarchial Flexgrid, and when I've posted here asking
for help I've had quite a few replies telling me that my "database design is
flawed" because I'm displaying "too much data", or my "interface is horribly
designed" and that my users will hate me for it. But as it turns out, my
users like the Flexgrid interface more than the original interface I designed
that was somewhat more, shall we say, "Access-expert accepted". Sometimes you
have to just do whatever your too-scared-to-learn-new-things users will have
the shortest time adjusting to. A few people here understand that better than
others. Unfortunately, that usually means we as developers have to work
harder to give the users what they want.

If you're attempting to build what amounts to an Access PivotTable, I can
send you a copy of what I've done and let you modify it however you need... I
just finished building one myself.

"LarryP" wrote:

To you and David, the monster under the bed with this thing is that I've been
tasked to turn an Excel spreadsheet into an Access tool that, among other
things, gives users a variety of drilldowns at a buttonclick. But they want
it to look as much as possible like the Excel spreadsheet they're used to,
and note the word "tasked" -- they tell, I attempt to do even if that's not
the way I would have designed it. As to logically subdividing the data into
tabs or pages, 36 of the ~40 fields are simply month-by-month dollar figures
for production demand and assets (materials) to satisfy that demand. So
breaking it into logical groups doesn't work very well conceptually, and
doesn't support the old familiar "just scroll to the right" thing they
"enjoyed" in Excel. Sigh ... guess I'll keep thinking, maybe a lightbulb
will go on.

"Keith Wilby" wrote:

"LarryP" wrote in message
news my #1 problem is
about showing roughly 40 fields of information horizontally, each needing
roughly 1" of screen width.

Schema design issues aside, have you considered arranging this data into
logical groups and putting each group on its own page on a tab control on
the sub-form?

Keith.
www.keithwilby.com

Also, as far as the FlexGrid licensing is concerned... I installed Visual
Basic 2005 Express Edition as Peter mentioned previously, and yes, for now
the licensing gods seem to be appeased for both the Flexgrid and the
Hierarcihial Flexgrid. Since VB2005 Express Edition is free, maybe your IT
department won't be so averse to letting you use it.

"LarryP" wrote:

Thanks, Nicholas, for the encouraging words. I am usually given a fair bit
of latitude to design from scratch, but now and then I'm handed one with
marching orders to "make it look like what they're already using." In this
case, since I haven't found any good single reference for how to use
FlexGrids, I'm setting up a form that essentially rotates their beloved Excel
display 90 degrees, so the months run top to bottom and the other stuff runs
horizontally, but otherwise it has much the same look. I'm hoping I can get
them to accept at least that much change.

I would, however, be interested in seeing your latest product just to
further my FlexGrid education, and if you know of a good FlexGrid Bible out
there somewhere, please point me to it. ).

"Nicholas Scarpinato" wrote:

Larry, I feel your pain. I've had to do much the same thing myself over the
past few days using Hierarchial Flexgrid, and when I've posted here asking
for help I've had quite a few replies telling me that my "database design is
flawed" because I'm displaying "too much data", or my "interface is horribly
designed" and that my users will hate me for it. But as it turns out, my
users like the Flexgrid interface more than the original interface I designed
that was somewhat more, shall we say, "Access-expert accepted". Sometimes you
have to just do whatever your too-scared-to-learn-new-things users will have
the shortest time adjusting to. A few people here understand that better than
others. Unfortunately, that usually means we as developers have to work
harder to give the users what they want.

If you're attempting to build what amounts to an Access PivotTable, I can
send you a copy of what I've done and let you modify it however you need... I
just finished building one myself.

"LarryP" wrote:

To you and David, the monster under the bed with this thing is that I've been
tasked to turn an Excel spreadsheet into an Access tool that, among other
things, gives users a variety of drilldowns at a buttonclick. But they want
it to look as much as possible like the Excel spreadsheet they're used to,
and note the word "tasked" -- they tell, I attempt to do even if that's not
the way I would have designed it. As to logically subdividing the data into
tabs or pages, 36 of the ~40 fields are simply month-by-month dollar figures
for production demand and assets (materials) to satisfy that demand. So
breaking it into logical groups doesn't work very well conceptually, and
doesn't support the old familiar "just scroll to the right" thing they
"enjoyed" in Excel. Sigh ... guess I'll keep thinking, maybe a lightbulb
will go on.

"Keith Wilby" wrote:

"LarryP" wrote in message
news my #1 problem is
about showing roughly 40 fields of information horizontally, each needing
roughly 1" of screen width.

Schema design issues aside, have you considered arranging this data into
logical groups and putting each group on its own page on a tab control on
the sub-form?

Keith.
www.keithwilby.com

Nicholas and Larry,

FYI, You can now download the free Visual Basic 2008 Express Edition
from Microsoft at http://www.microsoft.com/express/vb/ which also
gives you the free license. Not sure what the difference is but I
assume that the 2008 version has some extra facilities. You can also
get Visual Web Developer 2008, Visual C# 2008, Visual C++ 2008 and SQL
Server 2008 Express, all free. It is a pretty big download though.

You can find more information on the Flex Grid on the Microsoft site,
you have to do a bit of digging to unearth it though.

In case you are interested I have just placed another Flex Grid demo
on the Web site which displays Crosstab query data on a grid. See
http://www.rogersaccesslibrary.com/f...ts.asp?TID=429
for the demo.

Peter Hibbs.

On Tue, 9 Sep 2008 10:28:17 -0700, Nicholas Scarpinato
wrote:

Also, as far as the FlexGrid licensing is concerned... I installed Visual
Basic 2005 Express Edition as Peter mentioned previously, and yes, for now
the licensing gods seem to be appeased for both the Flexgrid and the
Hierarcihial Flexgrid. Since VB2005 Express Edition is free, maybe your IT
department won't be so averse to letting you use it.

"LarryP" wrote:

Thanks, Nicholas, for the encouraging words. I am usually given a fair bit
of latitude to design from scratch, but now and then I'm handed one with
marching orders to "make it look like what they're already using." In this
case, since I haven't found any good single reference for how to use
FlexGrids, I'm setting up a form that essentially rotates their beloved Excel
display 90 degrees, so the months run top to bottom and the other stuff runs
horizontally, but otherwise it has much the same look. I'm hoping I can get
them to accept at least that much change.

I would, however, be interested in seeing your latest product just to
further my FlexGrid education, and if you know of a good FlexGrid Bible out
there somewhere, please point me to it. ).

"Nicholas Scarpinato" wrote:

Larry, I feel your pain. I've had to do much the same thing myself over the
past few days using Hierarchial Flexgrid, and when I've posted here asking
for help I've had quite a few replies telling me that my "database design is
flawed" because I'm displaying "too much data", or my "interface is horribly
designed" and that my users will hate me for it. But as it turns out, my
users like the Flexgrid interface more than the original interface I designed
that was somewhat more, shall we say, "Access-expert accepted". Sometimes you
have to just do whatever your too-scared-to-learn-new-things users will have
the shortest time adjusting to. A few people here understand that better than
others. Unfortunately, that usually means we as developers have to work
harder to give the users what they want.

If you're attempting to build what amounts to an Access PivotTable, I can
send you a copy of what I've done and let you modify it however you need... I
just finished building one myself.

"LarryP" wrote:

To you and David, the monster under the bed with this thing is that I've been
tasked to turn an Excel spreadsheet into an Access tool that, among other
things, gives users a variety of drilldowns at a buttonclick. But they want
it to look as much as possible like the Excel spreadsheet they're used to,
and note the word "tasked" -- they tell, I attempt to do even if that's not
the way I would have designed it. As to logically subdividing the data into
tabs or pages, 36 of the ~40 fields are simply month-by-month dollar figures
for production demand and assets (materials) to satisfy that demand. So
breaking it into logical groups doesn't work very well conceptually, and
doesn't support the old familiar "just scroll to the right" thing they
"enjoyed" in Excel. Sigh ... guess I'll keep thinking, maybe a lightbulb
will go on.

"Keith Wilby" wrote:

"LarryP" wrote in message
news my #1 problem is
about showing roughly 40 fields of information horizontally, each needing
roughly 1" of screen width.

Schema design issues aside, have you considered arranging this data into
logical groups and putting each group on its own page on a tab control on
the sub-form?

Keith.
www.keithwilby.com

Peter,

I installed VB2008 EE on another machine here, and it worked well, except
that it took about an hour to install it because it wanted to install .NET
3.51 as well. Considering that my users are NEVER going to actually *use* the
program, going with the 2005 version is fine, at least for me. But I will be
sure to take a look at your Crosstab example to see if there's anything I
might have missed that would be beneficial to my users.


By the way, you don't happen to know how to make the mouse wheel work in a
flexgrid, do you? I've tried doing some research on it and all I can come up
with are solutions for VB applications, not for Access.

"Peter Hibbs" wrote:

Nicholas and Larry,

FYI, You can now download the free Visual Basic 2008 Express Edition
from Microsoft at http://www.microsoft.com/express/vb/ which also
gives you the free license. Not sure what the difference is but I
assume that the 2008 version has some extra facilities. You can also
get Visual Web Developer 2008, Visual C# 2008, Visual C++ 2008 and SQL
Server 2008 Express, all free. It is a pretty big download though.

You can find more information on the Flex Grid on the Microsoft site,
you have to do a bit of digging to unearth it though.

In case you are interested I have just placed another Flex Grid demo
on the Web site which displays Crosstab query data on a grid. See
http://www.rogersaccesslibrary.com/f...ts.asp?TID=429
for the demo.

Peter Hibbs.

On Tue, 9 Sep 2008 10:28:17 -0700, Nicholas Scarpinato
wrote:

Also, as far as the FlexGrid licensing is concerned... I installed Visual
Basic 2005 Express Edition as Peter mentioned previously, and yes, for now
the licensing gods seem to be appeased for both the Flexgrid and the
Hierarcihial Flexgrid. Since VB2005 Express Edition is free, maybe your IT
department won't be so averse to letting you use it.

"LarryP" wrote:

Thanks, Nicholas, for the encouraging words. I am usually given a fair bit
of latitude to design from scratch, but now and then I'm handed one with
marching orders to "make it look like what they're already using." In this
case, since I haven't found any good single reference for how to use
FlexGrids, I'm setting up a form that essentially rotates their beloved Excel
display 90 degrees, so the months run top to bottom and the other stuff runs
horizontally, but otherwise it has much the same look. I'm hoping I can get
them to accept at least that much change.

I would, however, be interested in seeing your latest product just to
further my FlexGrid education, and if you know of a good FlexGrid Bible out
there somewhere, please point me to it. ).

"Nicholas Scarpinato" wrote:

Larry, I feel your pain. I've had to do much the same thing myself over the
past few days using Hierarchial Flexgrid, and when I've posted here asking
for help I've had quite a few replies telling me that my "database design is
flawed" because I'm displaying "too much data", or my "interface is horribly
designed" and that my users will hate me for it. But as it turns out, my
users like the Flexgrid interface more than the original interface I designed
that was somewhat more, shall we say, "Access-expert accepted". Sometimes you
have to just do whatever your too-scared-to-learn-new-things users will have
the shortest time adjusting to. A few people here understand that better than
others. Unfortunately, that usually means we as developers have to work
harder to give the users what they want.

If you're attempting to build what amounts to an Access PivotTable, I can
send you a copy of what I've done and let you modify it however you need... I
just finished building one myself.

"LarryP" wrote:

To you and David, the monster under the bed with this thing is that I've been
tasked to turn an Excel spreadsheet into an Access tool that, among other
things, gives users a variety of drilldowns at a buttonclick. But they want
it to look as much as possible like the Excel spreadsheet they're used to,
and note the word "tasked" -- they tell, I attempt to do even if that's not
the way I would have designed it. As to logically subdividing the data into
tabs or pages, 36 of the ~40 fields are simply month-by-month dollar figures
for production demand and assets (materials) to satisfy that demand. So
breaking it into logical groups doesn't work very well conceptually, and
doesn't support the old familiar "just scroll to the right" thing they
"enjoyed" in Excel. Sigh ... guess I'll keep thinking, maybe a lightbulb
will go on.

"Keith Wilby" wrote:

"LarryP" wrote in message
news my #1 problem is
about showing roughly 40 fields of information horizontally, each needing
roughly 1" of screen width.

Schema design issues aside, have you considered arranging this data into
logical groups and putting each group on its own page on a tab control on
the sub-form?

Keith.
www.keithwilby.com

Nicholas

Yes, you are right about the installation time, it took ages for me as
well.

I just tried my demo again and the scroll wheel works fine on the flex
grids. My mouse is a Microsoft optical type but whether that is
relevant or not, I don't know. Perhaps there is some setting in
Windows you can tweak, other than that I have no other ideas.

Peter Hibbs.

On Tue, 9 Sep 2008 11:10:26 -0700, Nicholas Scarpinato
wrote:

Peter,

I installed VB2008 EE on another machine here, and it worked well, except
that it took about an hour to install it because it wanted to install .NET
3.51 as well. Considering that my users are NEVER going to actually *use* the
program, going with the 2005 version is fine, at least for me. But I will be
sure to take a look at your Crosstab example to see if there's anything I
might have missed that would be beneficial to my users.


By the way, you don't happen to know how to make the mouse wheel work in a
flexgrid, do you? I've tried doing some research on it and all I can come up
with are solutions for VB applications, not for Access.

"Peter Hibbs" wrote:

Nicholas and Larry,

FYI, You can now download the free Visual Basic 2008 Express Edition
from Microsoft at http://www.microsoft.com/express/vb/ which also
gives you the free license. Not sure what the difference is but I
assume that the 2008 version has some extra facilities. You can also
get Visual Web Developer 2008, Visual C# 2008, Visual C++ 2008 and SQL
Server 2008 Express, all free. It is a pretty big download though.

You can find more information on the Flex Grid on the Microsoft site,
you have to do a bit of digging to unearth it though.

In case you are interested I have just placed another Flex Grid demo
on the Web site which displays Crosstab query data on a grid. See
http://www.rogersaccesslibrary.com/f...ts.asp?TID=429
for the demo.

Peter Hibbs.

On Tue, 9 Sep 2008 10:28:17 -0700, Nicholas Scarpinato
wrote:

Also, as far as the FlexGrid licensing is concerned... I installed Visual
Basic 2005 Express Edition as Peter mentioned previously, and yes, for now
the licensing gods seem to be appeased for both the Flexgrid and the
Hierarcihial Flexgrid. Since VB2005 Express Edition is free, maybe your IT
department won't be so averse to letting you use it.

"LarryP" wrote:

Thanks, Nicholas, for the encouraging words. I am usually given a fair bit
of latitude to design from scratch, but now and then I'm handed one with
marching orders to "make it look like what they're already using." In this
case, since I haven't found any good single reference for how to use
FlexGrids, I'm setting up a form that essentially rotates their beloved Excel
display 90 degrees, so the months run top to bottom and the other stuff runs
horizontally, but otherwise it has much the same look. I'm hoping I can get
them to accept at least that much change.

I would, however, be interested in seeing your latest product just to
further my FlexGrid education, and if you know of a good FlexGrid Bible out
there somewhere, please point me to it. ).

"Nicholas Scarpinato" wrote:

Larry, I feel your pain. I've had to do much the same thing myself over the
past few days using Hierarchial Flexgrid, and when I've posted here asking
for help I've had quite a few replies telling me that my "database design is
flawed" because I'm displaying "too much data", or my "interface is horribly
designed" and that my users will hate me for it. But as it turns out, my
users like the Flexgrid interface more than the original interface I designed
that was somewhat more, shall we say, "Access-expert accepted". Sometimes you
have to just do whatever your too-scared-to-learn-new-things users will have
the shortest time adjusting to. A few people here understand that better than
others. Unfortunately, that usually means we as developers have to work
harder to give the users what they want.

If you're attempting to build what amounts to an Access PivotTable, I can
send you a copy of what I've done and let you modify it however you need... I
just finished building one myself.

"LarryP" wrote:

To you and David, the monster under the bed with this thing is that I've been
tasked to turn an Excel spreadsheet into an Access tool that, among other
things, gives users a variety of drilldowns at a buttonclick. But they want
it to look as much as possible like the Excel spreadsheet they're used to,
and note the word "tasked" -- they tell, I attempt to do even if that's not
the way I would have designed it. As to logically subdividing the data into
tabs or pages, 36 of the ~40 fields are simply month-by-month dollar figures
for production demand and assets (materials) to satisfy that demand. So
breaking it into logical groups doesn't work very well conceptually, and
doesn't support the old familiar "just scroll to the right" thing they
"enjoyed" in Excel. Sigh ... guess I'll keep thinking, maybe a lightbulb
will go on.

"Keith Wilby" wrote:

"LarryP" wrote in message
news my #1 problem is
about showing roughly 40 fields of information horizontally, each needing
roughly 1" of screen width.

Schema design issues aside, have you considered arranging this data into
logical groups and putting each group on its own page on a tab control on
the sub-form?

Keith.
www.keithwilby.com

=?Utf-8?B?TGFycnlQ?= wrote in
:

To you and David, the monster under the bed with this thing is
that I've been tasked to turn an Excel spreadsheet into an Access
tool that, among other things, gives users a variety of
drilldowns at a buttonclick. But they want it to look as much as
possible like the Excel spreadsheet they're used to

Just say NO.

If it's so easy, tell *them* to do it.

When they admit they can't, then perhaps you can convince them that
their conception of how it should be designed is perhaps not very
clearly thought out.

But say NO.

Over and over and over again.

I've had this happen with clients where I did it for them the right
way and they say "but that's not the way it should be!" In every
case, eventually they realize I was right all along.

--
David W. Fenton http://www.dfenton.com/
usenet at dfenton dot com http://www.dfenton.com/DFA/