Many applications display a splash screen upon starting. This screen is sometimes an animation or piece of artwork, sometimes an advertisement for the company that created the database application, and occasionally a useful dialog box that displays information or instructions. The hidden purpose of a splash screen is often to divert the user’s attention while the rest of the application loads into the computer’s memory. The Access applications that you create probably won’t take a long time to load, but a splash screen can still be useful.
Because the splash screen is the first thing users see each time they open the application, you can use it to remind them of important points, such as how to get help or how to contact you. This is also a good place to display a randomly selected tip—as long as the tip is more useful than irritating. To avoid having users get annoyed at anything that stands between them and the use of your application, you should always provide the option of not having the splash screen appear in the future.
A splash screen that users can interact with in some manner—by clicking buttons or entering text—is a specialized type of dialog box. You create this type of dialog box in Access by adding controls to a form.
In this exercise you will create a simple splash screen for the GardenCo database.
USE the GardenCo database, tgc_logo1 icon, and Paragraphs text file in the practice file folder for this topic. These practice files are located in the My DocumentsMicrosoft PressAccess 2003 SBSSwitchbrdSplash folder and can also be accessed by clicking Start/All Programs/Microsoft Press/Access 2003 Step by Step.
OPEN the GardenCo database and acknowledge the safety warning, if necessary.
On the Objects bar, click Forms, and then double-click Create form in Design view. (You might have to scroll left to see this option.)
Click the Save button, and in the Form Name box, type
Splash. Then click OK.If the Properties dialog box is not already displayed, press
.The Form object should already be selected in the list at the top of the dialog box.
Click the Format tab, and set the following properties:
Property
Setting
Scroll Bars
Neither
Record Selectors
No
Navigation Buttons
No
Dividing Lines
No
Auto Center
Yes
Border Style
None
Control Box
No
Min Max Buttons
None
Close Button
No
Width
5.5″If the Toolbox is not displayed, click the Toolbox button.
The Toolbox is now displayed.
In the Toolbox, click the Rectangle button, and then click anywhere in the Detail section.
A small rectangle appears where you clicked.
On the Format tab of the Properties dialog box, set the following properties for the rectangle:
Property
Setting
Left
0
Top
0
Width
5.5″Height
3.25″Back Style
Normal
Special Effect
Flat
Border Style
Solid
Border Color
32768Border Width
6 pt
The form changes in the background as you change each setting.
In the Toolbox, click the Image button, and then click in the rectangle, near the top.
Access inserts an image frame and displays the Insert Picture dialog box.
Navigate to the My DocumentsMicrosoft PressAccess 2003 SBSSwitchbrdSplash folder, and double-click tgc_logo1.
Access inserts The Garden Company’s logo in the image control.
Drag the image to center the logo along the top of the form, just below the border.
In the Toolbox, click the Label button, and then click below the left corner of the logo to insert a label. In the label, type
Placeholder, and press
.Align the left edge of the label with the left edge of the logo, and set the top just below the bottom of the logo.
Drag the handle at the lower-right corner of the label down and to the right until the label is as wide as the logo and about an inch high. (You might have to resize your window.)
Open any text editor, such as Microsoft Notepad. On the File menu, click Open, navigate to the My DocumentsMicrosoft PressAccess 2003 SBSSwitchbrdSplash folder, and then double-click Paragraphs. Copy the two paragraphs in that file to the clipboard, and then press
to return to the Splash form, select the Placeholder text, and paste the two paragraphs into the label control.In the Toolbox, click the Check Box button, and then click about a quarter inch below the label, aligned with its left edge, to insert a check box.
In the Properties dialog box, click the Other tab, and name the control
chkHideSplash. Then on the Data tab, set the Default Value property to0(meaning No).Click the label associated with the check box, and on the Format tab, type
Don’t show this screen againas its Caption property.With the label still selected, on the Format menu, click Size, and then click To Fit.
The entire caption is now displayed.
If the Control Wizards button is not active (orange) in the Toolbox, click it.
Click the Command Button button, and insert a command button near the right edge of the form, opposite the check box.
Access adds a button to the form and starts the Command Button Wizard.
In the Categories list, click Form Operations.
In the Actions list, click Close Form, and click Next.
Click Text, change the caption text from Close Form to
OK, and then click Next.Type
OKto name the button, and then click Finish.Save the design, and then click the View button to switch to Form view.
The form has a gray border because it doesn’t quite fill the design grid.
Switch back to Design view.
Click the Form Section Selector, and then on the Format tab in the Properties dialog box, set the width to
5.5″.Click OK in the form to close the splash screen.
CLOSE the GardenCo database and the text editor you opened in step 14.