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Tab Stop, Order, Cycle By Richard Rost 
6 years ago
Microsoft Access Tab Stop, Tab Order, Cycle Records on a Form In this video, I will show you how to change the Tab Order of the fields in your form, remove fields from being Tab Stops and show you how to change the record Cycle from "next record" to "current record." This will allow you to not have the form open to text that can be accidentally typed over. Eddy from The Netherlands (customer since 2011) asks, "I cannot find the way to deselect text inside the first field of the record on opening a form. How do I do this?" MembersI'll show you how to put the cursor at the end of a field when you tab to it (useful if you want to tab to a Notes field and add to the end) or select the first word of text (useful for automatically selected a first name in a field with multiple names).
Silver Members and up get access to view Extended Cut videos, when available. Gold Members can download the files from class plus get access to the Code Vault. If you're not a member, Join Today! LinksTab Order, Stop, Cycle: https://599cd.com/XACB8
IntroIn this video, we will talk about how to use the tab order, tab stop, and cycle properties in Microsoft Access forms to control how users move between controls using the keyboard. I will show you how to change the starting focus when opening a form, adjust the sequence fields are selected with the Tab key, prevent certain fields from being included in the tab flow, and set whether tabbing cycles through all records or just the current one. These tools can help you make your forms easier and safer for users to navigate.TranscriptWelcome to another TechHelp video brought to you by AccessLearningZone.com. I am your instructor, Richard Rost. In today's video, we are going to talk about the tab order, tab stop, and cycle properties so you can properly tab through the controls on your Microsoft Access forms.Eddie from the Netherlands writes, I cannot find a way to deselect text inside the first field of the record on opening a form. How do I do this? Well Eddie, there is a way to actually deselect that text, but I am assuming you want to do this because you are worried someone is going to open a form and hit a key and change that text. Let me show you a couple of better ways that you can get around this problem without having to worry about actually deselecting the text. With creative use of your tab order, your tab stop, and your cycle properties, you can probably make your problem go away. Here I have my basic customer database that I use for classes. If I open up my customer form, you can see I have got customer ID, first name, last name, a notes field, and a contacts button to open up the contacts form. But notice when I first open the form, my focus is sitting there on the customer ID. Now that is usually how I like it. As I tab through, it goes to each field in return like that. That is called the tab order. I usually recommend leaving the initial tab order on an ID field like that because if your user accidentally starts typing something, nothing is going to happen. You cannot edit an autonumber. I do not often like opening a form so that the first field is the one that can be edited, because then if they start accidentally typing or they hit a key, changes are made. If they do not know enough to hit escape to cancel that edit, then you are going to lose some data. My recommendation for you is just leave the initial tab stop as the customer ID field or whatever ID field you have in your database. If you do not want to show the ID for any number of reasons that I have talked about in other videos, you could have the tab order start on some other control like this contacts button. Let me show you how to change the tab order first of all. Let's go to design view. I am going to bring up the design tab here and go over to tab order. Now here you will see a list of all the controls on your form. Customer ID, first name, last name, notes, and then command 25 is my little command button on the bottom there. The tab order is a pop up modal window. You can rearrange these. I can click on an item, for example, and drag it up to the top. You have to click on it like that. You can select multiple items if you want to or click and drag. Once you have got them selected, you can click and drag them like that. I can hit auto order to arrange them. It goes left to right, top to bottom. If I had two columns here, it would go here, then here, then here, then here, then here. I am going to auto order these and let's put the command button on top. That is now first in the tab order. I am going to hit OK, I am going to close my form and save it. Now, look when I open up, it starts off with my control down here, the contacts button. That is highlighted because it is first in the tab order. Now if I hit tab, it brings me up to the top. That is because this is now one, two, three, four, five, and so on. Now if I keep tabbing, it goes to the next record. That is called the tab cycle. The default cycle is when you tab past the last control in a form, it goes to the next record. You can change that too. Back to design view. Bring up the form's properties, double click right there. Go to the Other tab and look for Cycle. It says All Records. Drop that down and pick Current Record. Now when you tab past the last control on this form, it will go back to the top. In this situation, you are going to start off on contacts, tab, tab, tab, tab, tab, and now it just cycles through that record. That is actually how I kind of prefer it most of the time. You can start your tab down here, you can start your tab order down here and then tab back through. There is one more thing you can do to make this even more user friendly. If you do not want customer ID being a tab stop, so when you hit tab it does not even go there, you can change something called the tab stop property. Again, design view. Open up the properties for this box, find tab stop on the Other tab, and then change that to No. Now when I open it up, I start off on contacts, and when I hit tab, it goes right to Richard in the first name field. It does not stop at ID. That is how I recommend doing it if you do not want it to open up to a field and look like that. That is tab order, tab stop, and tab cycle. Now you know everything you were to know about tabbing through the controls. Well, almost everything you were to know about tabbing through the controls on a form. If you want to learn more about tab order, tab stop, and the cycle property, I cover them all in my Access Beginner Level 8 class. I will put a link in the description below the video. To learn a little more about this stuff and the extended cut for members, I show you how to tab to a field like that notes field and put the cursor at the end of the field. So instead of having the whole thing selected, it just moves the cursor at the very end. I also teach you how to select the first word. For example, you can see in the second box there, it selected the word did not. That is handy, for example, if you get names in a field, you can go tab, tab, and it will select that first name for you. That is in the extended cut members edition. How do you become a member? Just click on that Join button below my video if you are watching on YouTube. You get access to the extended cut TechHelp videos like the one I just mentioned. If you are a Silver member and up, you also get access to live video and chat sessions and some other perks. If you click on the Join button, you will see all the different membership levels that are available. But do not worry, these TechHelp videos are going to keep coming for free. I am going to keep making them as long as you keep watching them. If you liked this video, make sure you click on the thumbs up, give me a like and a share. Make sure you subscribe to my channel and click that little bell so you get notifications every time I release a new video. Got any questions? Drop them in the comments below. If you have not yet tried my free Access Level 1 course, watch it right now. It has all kinds of cool stuff. It is three hours long. It is free. You can find it on my website or on YouTube. If you like Level 1, Level 2 is just one dollar and it is another whole hour long course. It is free for members. If you would like to see your question answered in a video like this, visit my TechHelp page. Thanks for watching and we will see you next time. QuizQ1. What is the primary purpose of adjusting the tab order on an Access form?A. To control the sequence in which controls are selected when pressing the Tab key B. To change the visual appearance of the form C. To set default values for fields D. To limit which users can access the form Q2. Why does Richard recommend initially setting the tab stop to the ID field, such as Customer ID? A. Because the ID field is always editable B. To prevent accidental edits in data fields C. Because users never use the tab key D. Because it speeds up data entry Q3. What does adjusting the tab cycle property on a form do? A. Changes font size of the form fields B. Determines what happens after tabbing past the last control C. Renames all fields automatically D. Locks all fields except the first one Q4. If you want to prevent users from tabbing to a certain field, like Customer ID, which property should you set to No? A. Tab Order B. Tab Enable C. Tab Stop D. Tab Index Q5. What happens when you set the Cycle property of a form to Current Record? A. Tabbing takes you to the next form B. Tabbing cycles through fields only within the current record C. All controls become read-only D. Tabbing skips all controls Q6. What does the Auto Order feature do in the tab order dialog? A. Assigns random numbers to fields B. Rearranges fields visually on the form C. Orders tab stops from left to right, top to bottom D. Removes controls from the form Q7. Why might you set the first tab stop to a button like "Contacts" instead of a data field? A. To make the form uneditable B. To guide users toward certain actions before entering data C. To improve the database speed D. To force users to close the form Q8. How can you access the tab order settings for a form in Access? A. Through the Home tab on the ribbon B. By switching to Design View and selecting Tab Order under the Design tab C. By opening the form in Datasheet View D. By right-clicking on a field and choosing Tab Settings Q9. What benefit is there to making the ID field not visible or not a tab stop if you do not want users to edit it? A. It reduces database size B. It prevents accidental data modification C. It speeds up loading the form D. It forces users to log in Q10. Where does Richard suggest you go to learn more about tab order, tab stop, and cycle properties in depth? A. Access Beginner Level 8 class B. Microsoft Office Home Page C. Any Windows settings menu D. Google Forms documentation Answers: 1-A; 2-B; 3-B; 4-C; 5-B; 6-C; 7-B; 8-B; 9-B; 10-A DISCLAIMER: Quiz questions are AI generated. If you find any that are wrong, don't make sense, or aren't related to the video topic at hand, then please post a comment and let me know. Thanks. SummaryToday's video from Access Learning Zone focuses on the tab order, tab stop, and cycle properties, which are essential for controlling how users navigate through controls on Microsoft Access forms.Eddie from the Netherlands asked about preventing the first field's text from being automatically selected when opening a form. His concern is understandable: if a form opens with a field selected and a user starts typing, they might unintentionally change important data. Rather than relying on methods for deselecting the text directly, there are better ways to prevent accidental edits using the form's navigation properties. Let us start by understanding how tab order works. In my demonstration, I am using a standard customer database. When opening the customer form, the focus – meaning where the cursor appears first – is on the Customer ID field by default. This setup is intentional because Customer ID is typically an AutoNumber field and cannot be changed, so accidental typing does not cause any harm. It is safer than starting with a field that users can edit, like First Name, where unintended keystrokes could overwrite data if the user is not familiar with how to cancel edits in Access. The recommendation, therefore, is to have the form open with the focus on a non-editable field, usually the ID. If there are reasons not to display this field or you have other controls, like a command button that opens a contacts form, you can easily adjust which control gets the initial focus. To modify the tab order, switch to design view for your form. In the design tools, you will find an option to set the tab order. This feature displays all the controls on your form in a list. You can rearrange the sequence by dragging the controls into your preferred order. There is also an auto order feature that organizes controls from left to right and then top to bottom. If your form has two columns, for example, auto order will arrange the focus logically through those columns as a user tabs through the form. Once you arrange your tab order and place, say, the command button first, Access will highlight that control when the form is opened. Pressing tab will bring you through the controls in your specified order. After reaching the last control, by default, tabbing again will take you to the next record in the form's data source. This behavior is managed by the Cycle property. To alter this, open the form's property sheet, go to the Other tab, find the Cycle property, and change it from All Records (the default, which moves to the next record) to Current Record. When set to Current Record, the focus cycles back to the first control in your tab order once you reach the last one, preventing users from jumping to another record unintentionally. If you want to make certain fields entirely skip over during tabbing – for example, if you do not want Customer ID as a tab stop at all – adjust the Tab Stop property for that control. Open the property sheet for the control, set Tab Stop to No, and it will no longer be included in the tab sequence. This means pressing tab will move directly to the next tab-enabled field, such as First Name. Through these properties, you gain full control over how users move through your form fields, reducing the risk of data entry errors and improving usability. These are the essentials you need to organize how controls are accessed and edited using a keyboard. For those interested in going further, I cover these topics in depth in my Access Beginner Level 8 class, which you can find linked below. In the extended cut of this video, members can also learn techniques such as placing the cursor at the end of a text field or selecting specific words, which can be helpful for fields containing names or multiple words. For members, joining provides access to extended cut videos, live sessions, and other benefits. However, all essential TechHelp videos like this one will remain freely available for everyone. If you have questions, you are welcome to post them in the comments. For even more, try my free Access Level 1 course, which is available both on my website and on YouTube. If you find it helpful, Level 2 is available for just one dollar or free for members. If you would like to submit your own question to be featured in a future video, visit my TechHelp page. A complete video tutorial with step-by-step instructions on everything discussed here is available on my website at the link below. Live long and prosper, my friends. Topic ListExplanation of tab order in Access formsSetting initial focus for form controls Changing the tab order of form fields Arranging tab order using drag and drop Using the Auto Order feature for tab order Setting a button as the first tab stop Adjusting the tab cycle property (All Records vs Current Record) Changing focus behavior when tabbing past the last control Setting the tab stop property to exclude controls from tabbing Demonstrating user-friendly tab navigation on forms |
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| Keywords: TechHelp Access tab stop tab order record cycle tab cycle sellength selstart instr PermaLink Tab Stop, Order, Cycle in Microsoft Access |
