Moving Objects/Fields in Form View

[jediderek]

I was wondering if it were possible to have it in a form that the user can move objects around like we can in the design/layout view? I'm just wanting to test the limits of what access can do. The main reason is that I want to have a library of objects that I can drag into the form and move arrange them the way I want to. These would be objects that I created with line objects in order to create a drawing if that makes sense. I attached an image showing the base idea(its a bathroom stall layout, but I would like to add more stalls, doors, etc). Thanks!

drawing.jpg

[HiTechCoach]

AFAIK, Access doesn't have native/built-in controls to do what you want.

In the Microsoft Office family, Access is the database application not the drawing tool. Visio is the drawing application in the Microsoft Office suite.

If you really want to push the limits of Access then you need to learn Office Automation and use all the Office applications together.

I find I can create much more powerful solutions if I build Office applications. By using all the applications together you have a very powerful toolbox. Limiting yourself to a single tool/application also limits what you can create. By design, all the Office applications work together to create powerful solutions. Microsoft enabled automation between the applications by exposing a very powerful Object Model. They all include VBA as their programing/macro language which allows the applications to control each other.

A few examples of what is possible:

1) I regularly build presentations in PowerPoint from data stored in Excel and/or Access.

2) From Access I generated Word merge documents all with automation. Save then as a PDF and email then with Outlook.

3) I have even done personalized newsletters with Publisher merging with data stored in an Access database.

4) In Office 2003 I created a solution that generated web sites. It was a static web site that was a large directory/catalog before database driven web sites were affordable. I used Access to build a database for the catalog/directory. Over 1000 items each with an image. There were 100+ items added and/or removed every week. Once the database was updated, with the click of a button it built a website using automation to control FrontPage (the Office 2003 web site builder). In a few minutes a large directory web site with 1000’s of page was generated. Previously, manually editing this site took days.

[jediderek]

AFAIK, Access doesn't have native/built-in controls to do what you want.

In the Microsoft Office family, Access is the database application not the drawing tool. Visio is the drawing application in the Microsoft Office suite.

If you really want to push the limits of Access then you need to learn Office Automation and use all the Office applications together.

I find I can create much more powerful solutions if I build Office applications. By using all the applications together you have a very powerful toolbox. Limiting yourself to a single tool/application also limits what you can create. By design, all the Office applications work together to create powerful solutions. Microsoft enabled automation between the applications by exposing a very powerful Object Model. They all include VBA as their programing/macro language which allows the applications to control each other.

A few examples of what is possible:

1) I regularly build presentations in PowerPoint from data stored in Excel and/or Access.

2) From Access I generated Word merge documents all with automation. Save then as a PDF and email then with Outlook.

3) I have even done personalized newsletters with Publisher merging with data stored in an Access database.

4) In Office 2003 I created a solution that generated web sites. It was a static web site that was a large directory/catalog before database driven web sites were affordable. I used Access to build a database for the catalog/directory. Over 1000 items each with an image. There were 100+ items added and/or removed every week. Once the database was updated, with the click of a button it built a website using automation to control FrontPage (the Office 2003 web site builder). In a few minutes a large directory web site with 1000’s of page was generated. Previously, manually editing this site took days.

I was afraid of this, thanks for letting me know. And yea that is actually what I'm doing at the moment if you can call this an office application. Everything is based in Access, but I'm creating emails with attachments, saving emails to the database, using word for saving bookmarks, and since access can't do what I want it to do, I'll end up using Visio.

[HiTechCoach]

If you have Visio thenyoiu could use the Visio Drawing Control in Access to do what you want.