MS Access - form in datasheet view: How do I lock in the column width?

Question

Here's the situation. The master form contains a subform, and the subform contains another subform. The master form has costs fields which have to line up (vertically) with corresponding costs in the first subform. I'd like to set the first subform in continuous forms, but Access doesn't allow that. Continuous forms cannot have embedded subforms. Hence, the first subform is in datasheet view. I don't want to display the first form in single form view because then you can't view all the costs of the first subform.

My plan is to set the cost columns on the datasheet, then adjust the location & widths of the costs in the master form to line them up. But I can't figure out how to prevent users from changing the datasheet column widths of the first subform. Besides shaking a clenched fist at my monitor, what can I do?

Thanks in advance for your help!

Answer 1

First of all, I could say that maybe there are much better ways to solve your problem other than your current design. Check your normalization and query because for me your form design is not good. But for sure you can lock and disable the first subform. All you need to do set the subform properties DATA-ENABLED-NO and LOCKED-YES. I hope that you can follow my point of view.

Answer 2

On a first take, it sounds like you are trying to make something that has way too much data on it. If this is for your eyez only, then its fine I guess, but if someone ( boss, teacher, etc.) is going to use this, my guess says they will get confused with all the subforms.



I would set up a cascading subform which will let you expand info only if needed by clicking on the + tree exand, otherwise, leave the info summarized.



good luck

Answer 3

Recall that in relational databases (access is one of those), there's no such thing as order for records in a table. So the records really are going at the end. Several solutions. One is to create a button that navigates the subform to new record. That'll do ya. OTOH if you know that a new record is going to be added by the user when this particular form is opened, add the goto new record to the form open event. Don't know about events or programming? Hmm, you'll need additional help then.