If you create a database application for a user who is not a computer expert it is probably better to remove some of the complexity of the full Access development environment by customising the toolbars and menus and by directing the user into 'safe' areas of the software. Rather than leave the full functionality of the toolbars and menus, which you as a developer are familiar with, it is better to leave available only those options that are relevant to the application.
To customise menus and toolbars choose View/Toolbars/Customise or right click a menu or toolbar and choose Customise. At this point all features of the toolbars and menus can be customised: buttons and items can be removed or copied from one menu or toolbar to another, commands can be added to a toolbar by dragging a command onto it, buttons can be moved along a toolbar or modified through their properties.
The toolbars available are listed in the Customise dialog:
Towards the bottom of this list are the ShortCut Menus and the Utility 1 and Utility 2 toolbars, which can be customised and made available to all Access databases on your computer. Unfortunately the custom designs will not be copied to another computer.
You can also add new toolbars by clicking on the New button. These toolbars will be included in your application, even when copied to other computers, but will not be available outside the database where they are defined. Each database you create will need its own custom toolbars and menus.
When you click the New button a dialog opens:
Give the toolbar a name and press OK. At this point a new empty toolbar is displayed onto which you can drag commands from the Commands section of the Customise dialog box. To copy a button from one toolbar to another hold down the Control key while dragging.
Click on the Properties button to set basic characteristics of the toolbar. Custom toolbars can be set to a type of toolbar, menu or Popup (the latter also known as 'short cut menu'). Other options available include control over docking and the five other things that are largely self-explanatory.
When a button or command has been dragged onto a toolbar it can itself be customised by right clicking it and choosing Properties.
This dialog includes the facility to make a button the start of a group, in which case a divider is placed before it. The character that follows the '&' character sets the 'hot key' or access key (Alt+letter). Commands can be customised by replacing the standard On Action code with a custom macro or custom code written in Visual Basic (needs '=' in front).
Button images can be changed by right-clicking them and using Copy Button Image and Paste Button Image. You can edit a button image by choosing Edit Button Image, at which point the button editor appears:
Finally, general options for toolbars can be set in the Options section:
To make a custom toolbar apply to a form, removing all others, open the form in Design view and choose Form Properties (click the rectangle in the top left corner to select the form and then click the Properties button). Find the Toolbar property under Other (or All) and change the setting to your custom toolbar.
To create a custom menu follow the procedures described above but set the option for the Type to Menu Bar.
Menus can be dragged from the existing menu bar so they are exactly the same or new items can be added. Menus such as Edit and Window may be copied complete but you may want to customise the File and Help menus to exclude some items and add others of your own.
To add a menu either drag it from the main menu bar or choose the Built-In Menus section under the Commands section (remember to hold down the Control key to copy the item).
To remove items from a menu drag them off the list; to add items drag them from the Commands part of the Customise dialog or from the menus themselves (remember to hold down the Control key to copy them).
To set a custom menu bar as the default for a form open the form in Design view and choose Properties. Set the Menu Bar option to your custom menu.
To add a form to a menu, such as one that gives summary details of an application, typically found on the Help menu, choose All Forms from the list in the Commands tab of the Customise dialogue. Drag the form you require onto the menu, open its properties and change
These are built in much the same way as custom toolbars and menus. Popup or short cut menus are activated by right clicking on an object. Short cut menus on forms can be disabled through the property but there is no such property for reports so unless a short cut menu is defined users will see the default menu. For a form each object can have its own short cut menu so you need to define a new menu for each one, otherwise users will again see the default.
When you choose Popup from the Toolbar Properties dialogue box a warning is shown:
Click OK to confirm that you are creating a short cut menu.
Click on the Shortcut Menus option in the Commands section of the Customise dialogue box to display the custom menu bar. The Custom menu appears on the right of the bar. To customise this menu drag items from it and onto it from the other menu bars.
To set a custom menu bar as the short cut menu open a form or report in design view and find the Shortcut Menu Bar property under Properties for the form or objects on it. Change the setting to your custom menu.
The switchboard allows you to present the forms and reports you created in Access in a menu system, which controls what the user can see and do with your database. It provides a way of generating an application from your database.
To start the Switchboard Manager choose Tools/Database Utilities/Switchboard Manager. Access will probably not find a default switchboard so click Yes to confirm that you want to have one set up.
Access now creates the default switchboard, both as a form in the Forms section and as a table in the Tables section. To delete a switchboard and start from scratch remove both the form and the table.
Once a switchboard is created it will become the default startup page for the database. To change this choose Tools/Startup and use the list of forms to select the item that you want to open first when you open the database. You can change other options startup from this form.
A switchboard can have up to eight buttons, one of which should be an exit button so some planning may be required if there are more than seven forms. Rather than carving up the functions listed on the switchboard by database object (forms, reports, queries) it may be better to arrange them by data items (CDs, tracks, customers, etc.).
A new switchboard form has no objects defined:
A reasonable sequence of events for creating a switchboard is:
The first thing to do is top create a new switchboard form, which will provide a list of forms in the project:
This adds 'Forms' to the list of switchboard forms available. We can edit this new form, adding items to it that will open specific forms in the database. Select the Forms item in the list and click the Edit button. This opens the new form:
To add a new button click on the New button:
Enter your own text for the Text to be displayed. Use the drop-down lists to set up the commands and objects that the commands operate on.
Add an Exit button to this form so that the user can navigate back to the main switchboard form:
Next we add an item to the main switchboard form that will allow us access to the Forms switchboard. To do this select Main Switchboard in the list and click the Edit button. Now click New to add an item to the Main Switchboard.
Add an Exit button as before, this time to quit the application rather than the form:
Now add the Reports Menu to the Main Switchboard. The Main Switchboard now has three items, Main (Default), Forms and Reports.
Add one or more items to the Reports switchboard to open reports in the database.
Close the Switchboard Manager and try out the new switchboard. Double click the Switchboard form in the Forms section and try the buttons:
Click the close cross in the top right corner when you tested the switchboard form (clicking Exit closes the file, which you don't want to do yet).
You can now set the start-up properties for your application. Choose Tools/Startup:
Most of these things are self-explanatory but just in case...
When your database is opened users will see only those options that you allowed. To open a database without enforcing these options hold down the Shift key as you open the file. You should in any case make a back-up copy of your database without the startup options applied, just in case...
To prevent users of your application using standard shortcut keys you need to replace the key presses with calls to macros of your own rather than the standard actions. You could, for example, display a message box when a user presses Ctrl-N or Alt-F4 instead of taking the default actions. AutoKeys macros are created as macros in the normal way but you need to know the naming conventions for the various keys involved.
| Macro Name | Keypress Intercepted |
| ^letter or ^number | Ctrl + key |
| {Fn} | named function key |
| ^{Fn} | Ctrl + function key |
| +{Fn} | Shift + function key |
| {Insert} | Insert |
| ^{Insert} | Ctrl + Insert |
| +{Insert} | Shift + Insert |
| {Delete} or {Del} | Delete |
| ^{Delete} or ^{Del} | Ctrl + Delete |
| +{Delete} or +{Del} | Shift + Delete |