Creating a Form in Access Video Lecture | SSC CGL Tier 2 - Study Material, Online Tests, Previous Year

welcome back in this section we're going
to start looking in detail at forms
we've already seen that we can enter
data directly into a table and maintain
data in tables so why use forms well a
lot of evidence over a long time has
shown that a well-designed user
interface in the form of a form has a
positive and beneficial effect on the
people who use it it makes efficient use
of the space available and we only need
to ask the users for the specific
information required to complete
whatever transaction operation they're
trying to perform when we're designing
forms there are a number of key
guidelines and we're going to be
following those as we go along within
our database we want to make our forms
consistent so we don't want to change
the way that users interact with the
forms we also need to use terms on the
forms that users are familiar with use
non-technical forms where we can don't
use generic terms like products if in
fact what we mean is books don't clutter
the forms up don't add too much into one
form if there is a lot of information to
gather or change use a couple of forms
or a couple of tabs on a form also and
this is extremely important test
everything really thoroughly there's
nothing more off-putting when somebody's
trying to use a database than the thing
breaking on falling over every few
minutes the other key thing with forms
is to design the forms around specific
tasks don't just put one form and then
do several different tasks on it try to
have a form for each task and only ask
for what you need on each of those forms
so with those guidelines in mind let's
have a look at one or two of the
existing forms from the Northwind
database
okay let's open up the Northwind
database log in is one of the employees
and let's look at one of the forms let's
look at employee details now this
particular form was of course designed
by somebody else but a lot of the
features on it are going to become very
familiar to you as we work our way
through and this is actually an employee
details form header on the form makes it
exactly clear what it is which is a
useful thing to bear in mind the name of
the employee in question is here and
then we have the individual fields
first-name lastname company job title
and of course will recognize some fields
from the ones on our student form so
this has business phone home phone
mobile phone for example address
including a zip code and then we have an
email address web page and some notes
these notes are probably held on the
database in the form of a memo field
Teta type down at the bottom we have
some very important controls which are
going to be a common feature on most of
our forms and these enable us to step
through the records in our database
these arrow buttons enable us to go to
next records so that's two three note
the counts are there four and so on and
then we have a last record button it's a
bit like the end of a tape on an older
video recorder or a last track on a CD
or something like that and then we can
go back to the first record with this
button the form also has a search
facility and then a number of commands
up here which do specific things for
instance we have an email button which
will bring up an email dialog which
enables me the user to send an email to
Andrew
so we have some controls on here as well
a space for a picture and then of course
a close button which basically does the
same as the standard windows close
button in the top right hand corner so
that's a good example of an employee
details form
what we're now going to do is to create
a form for our database so first of all
we open our database the private tooter
database and we select the table for
which we're going to create a form we're
going to create a form for the courses
table let me just open that table to
remind you what's in it it's basically a
list of courses with a code course
description an hourly rate and the
number of lessons in each course on the
create tab on the ribbon there is a
forms section and we're going to use the
form wizard which is a very quick and
easy way of creating a form from a
specified table click on form wizard and
away we go now the form wizard knows
which fields are in our table there are
four of them and if I only want certain
fields on the form I can select them at
this point so for instance if I wanted
just the middle two I could say I'll
have course description and hourly rate
but I don't want just those two I want
the whole lot so there's a double arrow
that moves the whole lot over now I can
also choose fields from more than one
table or query but we're going to come
back to that later on so within the
wizard I now click on next and if you
look at the picture here it lets me
choose a layout for the form I'm going
to have I can have a columnar layout so
arranged by column tabular layouts
arranged in a tabular form data sheet
layout just like the datasheet layout
for the table itself or a justified
layout like this let's try the first one
let's try the columnar form then we go
next what take largely you want for your
form well I'm gonna say courses and I'm
going to open the file can either open
the form now to view or enter
information or I can modify the forms
design well
open the forum nouns that see what it
looks like
one of the most noticeable things about
this new form is that it shares some of
the properties of the example we saw in
the Northwind database just now almost
straight away and we have a search
button
we have it although it's grayed out a
filter button there and then we have a
little set of controls next record
previous record last record and so on
and we even have a new record button
this is the button if we press that we
finish up with an empty form and we can
type in the details of and of course
I only rate for that will say is $30 and
its am a six lesson course and basically
that facility means that we've got now a
form that will enable us to look at
existing records and add records and as
we'll see shortly it'll give us a way of
deleting records as well and that was
using a form wizard that they're pretty
much the whole job for us now
their form may not be exactly the sort
of look and feel that you want but it
certainly does the job
now let's look at some different views
of this forum before we do that look at
the tabs here I've got two items open
called
courses but by looking at the icon I can
see that that's a table and that's a
forum I'm going to close the table and
leave the forum there now with a forum
there are three fundamental views if we
use the button there we have design view
layout view and forum view this is
currently in form view and there are two
other ways between of switching between
the views one of them is if you
right-click on the courses forum here
over in the navigation pane you have
open which is effectively forum view
layout view and design view and you also
have in the bottom right-hand corner of
the screen three little icons here three
little buttons design view layout view
form view form view is the view that
you'll see when you're using a form to
enter and change information design view
is the one you'll use when you actually
want to change the design of the form
and we're going to be doing that in the
subsequent sections sort of thing I mean
by this is this is one of the boxes that
the course code goes into you may have
noticed in form view that that box is
actually far too big we're only going to
put a little code in there so why have
something as big as that so with that
we're going to change that in a little
while we'll change it in design view
layout view is a new feature it's it'll
be new to those of you who haven't used
a version of access 2007 or newer layout
view is a view sort of in-between one
where you can make basic changes to the
layout of form such as changing the size
of one of these fields one of these
controls that people are entering dates
are in two
but you can do it with the data in view
so you can actually look at it with some
data on it in design view you don't
actually have any data in it you have
field names and captions and so on
so layout is the sort of in-between view
let's look at some of the other
out-of-the-box functionality we get with
Access 2010 with our new form we have a
facility to change the data in the
courses table so for instance if on the
grade five alto sax course I was going
to change it from 12 lessons to 15
I could merely make that change and then
on the Home tab in the records group
there is a Save button save saves that
record if I want a new record click on
new let's have a new course which
definitely is not my colleagues sort of
course as she's only on brass and
woodwind so there is a new violin
beginners course move away we'll save it
as well if I go back to that course if I
click the bar on the left it selects the
record and if I then click delete in the
records group it deletes that record I
get a warning you're about to delete one
record click on yes that's exactly the
same as if I deleted the record in
datasheet view when we were looking at
the tables earlier on in the course
but we do have several other interesting
facilities as well and I'm going to
start with the search facility we've got
this search box down here I'm going to
search for clarinet click on find find
them replace box find the next one
clarinet grade one clarinet grade two
clarinet intermediate grade one so on
mark soft access finish searching the
records so I can use that simple
facility to do a search through all the
records in my table and another feature
which is built in is the filter feature
which is really very flexible let's
suppose I wanted to find all of the
courses that operate at the highest rate
that I charge if I click in the hourly
rate field on the courses form click on
filter and it shows me all of the hourly
rates that I have 30 35 and 40 let's
clear them all and just check 40 click
on OK and what it's now showing me is a
subset of all of the records in the
courses table and it show me the records
where the hourly rate is 40 and there
are three of them that's number one of
three number two of three number three
or three and so on so that's filtered on
that rate if in addition I wanted to add
a filter say on the course description
clicking that field click on filter that
gives me a list of all the course
descriptions for the courses at that
hourly rate if I just wanted to find
that one click on OK I've just got the
one alto sax grade 8 is a 40 pounds in
our course so filtering and searching
are basically inbuilt in the
functionality of forms
in Access 2010
so having seen how to automatically
generate a really quite useful form in
the next section we're going to look at
ways of adding two forms and also
starting to change them to better suit
our exact requirements I'll see you then