what they are saying is deptX wants tahoma9 fonts and in the tables
number fields should not have a default.
deptY wants tahoma8 and defaults of 0
deptZ wants arial9 and no defaults on number fields.
the list goes on.

how can I set this up as a default for each department?
make a database with a table and a form and in a database named after
the department?

then what?

On 18/05/2011 19:57:04, sparks wrote:
I'd start off by telling them that you are the Db designer and if they don't
like it they should go to hell. When that fails, firstly the font in the
tables should be irrelevant as data should only ever be input through forms
(to give the opportunity for error checking) and retrieved with either forms
or reports. If a number field is the foreign key to a table, it should be set
at Null if you want to add a new record. If you set all numeric fields to
null, remember to convert them to 0 for all calculations - Nz() function. The
problem with that is if for example you use a query that contains an Nz()
function to populate an Excel sheet, Excel throws a wobbly as it doesn't
understand Nz(). As for the forms, it depends how the user gets to them. I
personally use a menu system, with different menus, depending on who is
logged on. That would make it easy for a slightly different version of each
form for each department, but it means maintaing 3 different forms. If you
try the other root of going through each control on the form and setting it's
FontName and FontSize, you will run into problems that the width of the
control may well not be wide enough to accomodate the amount of data.

Phil

You cannot and should not change table design by department. Users should
never be allowed to see tables anyway ... keep them hidden.

The user interface is a front-end linked to the tables on a back-end. Since
each user has his/her own front-end, they can customize it to their hearts
content. While the tables should have defaults, at least for required
fields, it isn't necessary to display the defaults in a form.
--
Arvin Meyer, MCP, MVP
http://www.datastrat.com
http://www.accessmvp.com
http://access.mvps.org
Co-author: "Access Solutions", published by Wiley

"sparks" <sparks (AT) home (DOT) com> wrote

OK I talked to them about what both of you said.
I asked what exactly they thought and why they wanted this.

OK one department was saying that in the tables when they create a
number field the default is 0 and they have to remove it from each
number field.

They then said the default form view has tahoma 8 font for all labels
and text input fields and was too small for some users to read.


my reply was the default is 0 is a default of microsoft and I know how
to make a normal database file to set and then every database will not
have it. BUT I do not know how to set 4 or 5 different normal files to
whatever you are building at the time.

on the tahoma 8 I was surprised when I went into tools/options and the
only font setting is for querys...is that right?

under forms/reports there is not a direct way to default it in the
database...am I missing something.

what I have is 2 departments all of a sudden after 15 years saying I
can't read it...turn up the font size on your desktop.

one woman has a 22 in widescreen monitor that will run 1600/1050 and
hers is 1280/1024 because it looks better yep its a lot bigger so why
do you want it even bigger. WELL I don't like wearing glasses they
make me look old so I want it bigger.

LADY you would look old no matter what you wore.


so is there a way to make a template or normal db and call it no
default_tahoma8
then let them start with this in one department and another baseline
database called default_tahoma10 and then the database built off of
this would be setup for what they want.




On Thu, 19 May 2011 01:09:18 -0400, "Arvin Meyer" <arvinm (AT) invalid (DOT) org>
wrote:

Perhaps you did not understand -- if you are setting up a database
application to allow multiple users to access the shared tables, you should
be creating forms for them to use to enter, manipulate, and use data, and
you can control the font and size on forms (or even create special forms for
individuals, or let them customize some aspects of the forms they use
because each user will have their own copy of the front-end to access the
data on the back-end.

Only "power users" should be doing personal applications and those should
not use the shared data. Specifically, if your users are allowed to access
shared tables directly, or create their own queries, you cannot expect any
data integrity, because it is so easy to make a mistake that not only is a
problem for the user who makes the mistake, but is a problem for everyone
who uses the shared data.

--
Larry Linson, Microsoft Office Access MVP
Co-author: "Microsoft Access Small Business Solutions", published by Wiley
Access newsgroup support is alive and well in USENET
comp.databases.ms-access


"sparks" <sparks (AT) home (DOT) com> wrote

sparks <sparks (AT) home (DOT) com> wrote in
news:cd58t6hep5iipi6bg8nerehffq2tu4ogvj (AT) 4ax (DOT) com:

The default for numeric fields should be NOTHING. The default of 0
that Access has used forever has always been a problem, and
something I always have to remove when creating fields. Nulls are
GOOD. The only reason you'd want 0 as the default was if the field
is required.

I would go with defaults of NULL for all numeric fields (i.e., no
default at all), for all departments, because it's the correct
database design. If for different purposes a department prefers a
different default, then you can be hired to build them the
appropriate forms with defaults for the controls on those forms that
override the table defaults.

As to font sizes, this can be done at runtime. I do it in several of
my applications. I call a procedure in the form's OnLoad event that
passes the form object (Me) and the procedure sets the fonts/labels
according to settings drawn from a table. To control that on a
by-department basis, you'd need to have some way of looking up the
user logon and finding out what department that person is in. Or,
alternatively, if each department has its own unique back-end
database, then you can use that to figure out which set of defaults
to use.

But I would say that what you describe is an issue better handled on
a per-user basis (not per-department). I used to be as scornful of
old people who can't see and set their 25" monitors to 640x480, but
then I got old and my eyesight decayed, too. The other thing is that
Windows and Windows applications are just not that smart about
utilizing high screen resolutions. There ought to be automatic
adjustments to widget and font size so that things are not
incredibly tiny when they are all those extra pixels. Windows 7 goes
a long ways towards addressing that by having smart defaults for
high screen resolutions, but you may have lots of WinXP users.

Chances are good that if they are having this problem in your
database application, they are also having it in other applications,
as well, and perhaps you should help them find settings that work
for ALL their apps, instead of simply fixing the problem in the
Access app. That would mean that you would avoid programming this
stuff into the app. Setting up a mechanism to allow users to choose
and save their individual settings can be fussy and very
time-consuming work, and in my experience, it's something everybody
says is a must-have, and then once it's rolled out, nobody ever uses
it all -- they just use the defaults.

So, experience tells me you'd be better off addressing the desktop
settings of the individuals with problems rather than investing all
that time in the Access application.

--
David W. Fenton http://www.dfenton.com/
contact via website only http://www.dfenton.com/DFA/

On May 21, 3:14*pm, "David-W-Fenton" <NoEm... (AT) SeeSignature (DOT) invalid>
wrote:
I agree totally. In order to get the desired departmental defaults
for non-numeric data, I might get the username and then use it to get
their department joined to a table containing the desired departmental
defaults instead of having separate forms, but either way should work
fine.

James A. Fortune
CDMAPoster (AT) FortuneJames (DOT) com

After talking to them they are more against anything you said.

I remember in access 97 saving out a default database with all
numberic values in the table defaulting to missing instead of 0.
I though it was called a template like word does the dot file.

then I found this on microsoft

A default database

In Access 2007 and later, you can also create a default database, with
the properties, objects, and configuration you want whenever you
create a new (blank) database.

http://allenbrowne.com/ser-43.html


what I was thinking was make a default with what a department wants
and call it dept.mbd or whatever.


Most of these people use access 2003 so this information is not valid
for them.

again I rember you could do some things in 97 so I am sure it was also
included in 2003 but I can't find any information on it.





On Sat, 21 May 2011 19:50:09 -0700 (PDT), "James A. Fortune"
<CDMAPoster (AT) FortuneJames (DOT) com> wrote:

On May 23, 2:27*pm, sparks <spa... (AT) home (DOT) com> wrote:
I suppose you have to accommodate them if possible. I don't like the
idea of using multiple databases to get separate default behaviors,
but I've abused Access in several horrifying ways that I won't admit
to in order to make the customer deliriously happy. IMO, the final
product's a lot better when they don't try to help so much.

James A. Fortune
CDMAPoster (AT) FortuneJames (DOT) com