On Double Click
By Richard Rost
5 years ago
Using the On Double Click Event. Open Record.
In this Microsoft Access tutorial, I'm going to teach you how to use the On Double Click event to increment a date field by one day. This way you can just double-click on the date field itself to increase its day by one. I'll also show you how you can use this technique to open a customer's record by double-clicking on his ID in the customer list form.
Anderson from Buffalo, New York (a Platinum Member) asks: I watched your On Click Event video. It was awesome. Exactly what I asked for. Is there any way you can do the same thing with a Double Click? This way I don't need the labels which take up precious space.
Members
I'll show you how to cancel a double-click event to prevent the user from clicking twice on a button. You've had it happen before: the user thinks they have to double-click on a button and now they've made the On Click event run twice (deleted two records instead of one, for example). I'll show you how to deal with that. And I'll also show you how to pop up an "Are you sure?" warning message.
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What Course?
On Double Click is Covered in...
Links
On Click: https://599cd.com/OnClick
Continuous Forms: https://599cd.com/Continuous
Customer List Form: https://599cd.com/CustomerListForm
Concatenation: https://599cd.com/Concatenation
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office/vba/api/access.form.dblclick
Intro In this video, I will show you how to use the On Double Click event in Microsoft Access with two practical examples. First, you will learn how to increment a date field by simply double clicking on it, eliminating the need for extra buttons or labels. Then, I will demonstrate how to set up a double click event on a customer list form so you can open a customer's detailed form by double clicking their ID or last name. These tips help streamline your forms and make them more user friendly.Transcript Welcome to another TechHelp video brought to you by AccessLearningZone.com. I am your instructor, Richard Rost.
In today's video, I am going to teach you how to use the On Double Click event. We are going to do two separate examples.
In the first example, it is going to be just like the On Click event from yesterday's video. In that video, we made a little button and then a little label so you can click on that and the On Click event would increase a date field. We would add one day to it.
In this video, we are going to do the same thing, but we will use the On Double Click event. So instead of having to add a button or a label, we will just double click on the field itself to add a day to it.
Then I will show you how to use the same event, the On Double Click event, on the customer list form so we can double click on their ID and open up their customer form. All of that in today's video.
Today's question comes from Anderson from Buffalo, New York. Same as yesterday's question. The only reason I am doing back-to-back questions for the same guy is because A, he is a platinum member and platinum members get away with a lot, and B, he is from Buffalo, New York, my old hometown.
Anderson says, I watched your On Click event video. It was awesome. Thank you. Exactly what I asked for. Is there a way you can do the same thing with a Double Click? This way I do not need the labels which take up precious space.
Anderson actually sent me a screenshot of his form. He has got a million different text boxes and buttons and controls all crammed into a tiny little, I told him I said you have got to break that up into multiple forms, but he is happy that he has it. So he wants to know if there is a way he can just double click on that date field and increase that date value.
This is the database from yesterday's video, the On Click event. In that video, we made these little buttons here, plus and minus. We assigned those to the On Click event of these labels, right there, On Click event.
If you have not watched that video, go watch that video. Gold members, you can download this template if you want to. It will be right on the website.
What Anderson wants to do is instead of having to click on these labels which take up precious space, he wants to just be able to double click on Customer Since.
Now, let's review what these guys do. Click on that, go to dot dot dot. All those do is say Customer Since equals Customer Since plus one. So let's copy that. Let's find the On Double Click event of the Customer Since box.
Go there, go to the Event tab, find On DBL Click, On Double Click. Dot dot dot. Now we are in the Customer Since double click event. Paste. That is it. Go to the Event tab and find out what the Customer Since is.
What I like to do for anything with a double click event in it, to signal the user that you can do some stuff, is I like to format it. I make mine blue, like a light blue like that. This just visually tells the user, hey, if you click on this field, something is going to happen. What? You could use a control tip if you want to. Come in here, go to where is it? Under All, Control Tip Text. Click to increase, increase increment, increment date, like that. That is a control tip text. That is what happens when you hover over a field. Hover over that. See, double click to increment date.
Now double click, double click, double click, double click, double click, see that? Now you can get rid of those labels that are taking up precious space.
Anderson is a long time customer, so I can mess with him a little bit.
One thing that I also like to do with this ability to double click on stuff is I like to use it to open up other records. For example, let's save this.
In this template, you can see here the ID field is blue. This is the TechHelp free template. I started off with a blank template, which had the customers in it. Then I added this customer list form. Then I added contacts, so there are contacts in here too. After this, I even added invoicing, which was the invoicing button. I think it is under here. Yeah, Orders. It has got invoicing. You can get all this for free. It is all on my website. Download this template if you want to. Everybody can download it, not just gold members.
Somewhere along the line, I added this On Double Click event here, and I never recorded it. I cannot find the video that I recorded it in. I am going to give a bonus. If anyone can find the other video where I added that to the templates, send me the video link and the time index and you will get a free month of silver membership on me. I tried to find it. I want to make sure I included it in this video too.
If you go into Design View on the customer list, this is a continuous form. If you have never done continuous forms before, I have got videos for that. I will put a link down in the section below. Basically, it is the blank customer template video.
Again, it is the customer ID. Double click on that. Go to Events. The On Double Click is right here.
Now, what is this? There are two lines of code in here. It says, if IsNull CustomerID, then Exit Sub. That means if I am on the blank new record down here (let me show you), if I am on the blank new record down here where it says New, if you double click, nothing happens. That is what if IsNull CustomerID means.
The second line is DoCmd.OpenForm. I have got videos on OpenForm if you have ever used that before. It basically opens another form. CustomerF is the form name. Comma, comma, comma. Those are some parameters we do not need to worry about right now. I cover those in my full classes, but for this example, we do not need those. All we need to worry about is this guy here, the WhereCondition.
See the WhereCondition? It says CustomerID equals CustomerID and it concatenates those together. If you do not know what string concatenation is, it is when you put two strings together. This is technically a string and a number, but it is the same thing. I have videos on concatenation too; go watch that.
This just says take the current CustomerID on this form, whatever number you happen to be on, slap it in there with CustomerID equals and send it to OpenForm. So it is going to be OpenForm CustomerF where CustomerID equals three or six or whatever number I happen to be on.
So there is three. Double click. Boom. See, it sends a three in there and it opens up that form.
That is the On Double Click event, really easy to do. The command button, which is up here in the command button tools, will open up this one, but that is a little hard for some users to remember. To click on a customer, then click on OpenForm. It is easier to just make this a double click event right there.
You can extend that if you want to. You can put that in all these fields so they can double click here and it opens up that. Let me show you.
Design View. Let's make it so they can click on Last Name. I like to make it blue. That is just my thing. Did that color blue? That is close enough. It is a little bit different, I think.
Last Name, Event, On Double Click, right there. We can basically just copy this code, copy and then paste like that. It is the same thing. Open the customer form where the CustomerID equals the current CustomerID.
Open the customer list, double click on Picard. Cool. There you go. It is that easy.
That is what I forgot to put in the template videos. So now I can add this one to the list.
Learn more about the On Double Click event in my Access Developer 4 class. I will put a link to that down below.
Want to learn more about the On Double Click event? In the extended cut for the members, I am going to show you how to prevent accidental double clicks. You have probably had this happen before: you have a button, no matter what it does, you want it to do one thing, but your users sometimes double click on it. Or maybe you do. Do not blame the users for everything.
What I will do is show you how to make it so your On Click event runs, but it only runs once. If they accidentally double click on it, like for a delete, for example, it will not run it twice and delete two records or add two days to Customer Since.
For the delete, I will show you how to add a pop-up message box. It says, are you sure? If they do not say yes, it exits out. Preventing that accidental double click is the main focus of the extended cut for members.
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Thanks for watching this video from AccessLearningZone.com.Quiz Q1. What is the main topic of this video?
A. Using the On Double Click event in Microsoft Access
B. Creating reports in Microsoft Access
C. Designing tables in Microsoft Access
D. Setting user permissions in Access
Q2. How does the On Double Click event improve form usability compared to using buttons or labels?
A. It allows navigation without saving records
B. It allows users to double click directly on a field to trigger actions, saving space
C. It automatically updates all fields with one click
D. It requires more controls on the form
Q3. In the video example, what does double clicking on the "Customer Since" field accomplish?
A. Decreases the date by one day
B. Deletes the record
C. Increases the date by one day
D. Opens a related report
Q4. Why did Anderson want to use the On Double Click event instead of labels?
A. Labels are difficult to create
B. The form crashed with labels
C. Labels take up precious space on the form
D. Double click is faster than clicking a label
Q5. What visual cue does Richard recommend adding to fields with a double click event?
A. Make the text bold
B. Add a popup message
C. Change the background color to blue
D. Increase the font size
Q6. What can be displayed when a user hovers over a field with a double click event?
A. The source table name
B. A control tip text explaining the action
C. The record count
D. Form properties window
Q7. What does the code 'If IsNull(CustomerID) Then Exit Sub' prevent?
A. Running the event on existing records only
B. Opening forms with invalid CustomerID
C. Running the code on the blank new record
D. Editing locked records
Q8. What does 'DoCmd.OpenForm' do in the context of the On Double Click event?
A. Saves the current record
B. Opens a form specified by name, filtered to a particular record
C. Closes the current form
D. Deletes a form from the database
Q9. In the customer list form, what is the benefit of using a double click event on the CustomerID field?
A. It opens the CustomerF form for that specific customer
B. It opens all customer records
C. It exports data to Excel
D. It deletes the customer
Q10. How can you prevent accidental double clicks from running an event twice, as mentioned for the extended cut for members?
A. By removing all double click events
B. By using code to ensure the event runs only once
C. By reducing the button size
D. By disabling user input
Q11. Which membership level allows downloading all sample databases and accessing the code vault?
A. Silver
B. Gold
C. Bronze
D. Free user
Q12. What is string concatenation in the context of the OpenForm method shown in the video?
A. Adding numbers together
B. Splitting fields into two
C. Joining two strings (or string and number) together to build a WhereCondition
D. Sorting records by name
Q13. If a user wants to apply the On Double Click event to open a form from multiple fields, what should they do?
A. Assign the On Double Click event and code to each desired field
B. Only assign to one field at a time
C. It is not possible to use On Double Click in this way
D. Change the form property instead
Q14. What is the suggested way to indicate to users that a double click event is available on a field?
A. Bold the field name
B. Change the color and add a helpful control tip text
C. Hide the field
D. Make the field read-only
Q15. Which of these is NOT mentioned as a membership benefit in the video?
A. Access to extended cut videos
B. Receiving free gifts by mail
C. Download sample databases
D. Access to full-length courses
Answers: 1-A; 2-B; 3-C; 4-C; 5-C; 6-B; 7-C; 8-B; 9-A; 10-B; 11-B; 12-C; 13-A; 14-B; 15-B
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.Summary Today's video from Access Learning Zone focuses on how to use the On Double Click event in Microsoft Access. I am Richard Rost, your instructor, and I will guide you through two practical examples of how this event can be used in your forms.
First, let me recap the On Click event from yesterday's video. In that session, we created buttons and labels so that clicking on them would increase the value of a date field by one day. Today, we are going to achieve the same result, but instead of relying on a separate button or label, we will use the On Double Click event attached directly to the field. This way, by simply double clicking on the date field itself, we can increment the date without adding more controls to your form, saving valuable space.
The second example will demonstrate how the On Double Click event can be applied in a customer list form. Here, you will learn how double clicking on a customer's ID in the list will instantly open up that customer's detail form, streamlining the navigation process within your database.
The question for today's lesson was inspired by Anderson from Buffalo, New York, who also submitted the question for yesterday's session. He wanted to know if it was possible to replicate the On Click event functionality with a double click, eliminating the need for extra labels that crowd the form. Anderson shared a screenshot of his heavily packed form, which highlighted the need for more space-efficient solutions.
To start, we will use the database developed in the previous On Click video. In that setup, we placed plus and minus labels to handle incrementing and decrementing the "Customer Since" field when clicked. For today's improvement, you no longer need to rely on those labels. Instead, I will show you how to assign the relevant code to the On Double Click event of the date field itself. With this approach, whenever you double click on that field, it will add one day to the date.
For usability, I recommend visually indicating when a field has interactive functionality. I often set the background color of such fields to a light blue to catch the user's eye. Additionally, you can use the Control Tip Text property to display a helpful message when users hover their mouse over the field, such as "Double click to increment date." This makes it clear that double clicking will take a specific action.
Once implemented, you will see that double clicking on the "Customer Since" field immediately increments the date, rendering the previous labels unnecessary and clearing up space on your form.
Next, I want to show you another effective use of the On Double Click event. In my free TechHelp template, I have a customer list form in continuous form view. If you enable the On Double Click event on the customer ID control, you can make it so that double clicking a customer's ID opens the related customer form. The code behind this event checks if the Customer ID is null (to prevent errors if you try to open a form from an empty record), and then uses the OpenForm command with the correct parameters to display the desired customer record. The key here is the WhereCondition, which uses string concatenation to match the current ID.
I encourage you to apply this logic to other fields as well, such as a last name field, to offer multiple intuitive entry points for users to open customer records. When setting up these controls, again, I recommend using a blue background as a cue and providing appropriate tooltips.
For further exploration of the On Double Click event, check out my Access Developer 4 class, which is linked below for your convenience.
In the Extended Cut of today's lesson, available for members, I will teach you how to prevent problems caused by accidental double clicks. For example, it's common for users to double click a button by mistake, which could cause actions like deleting records or incrementing values more than once. I will show you how to make sure your On Click events only run once per action and add a confirmation dialog for destructive actions like deletions. Avoiding these accidental double actions is our focus in the Extended Cut, so if you're a member, be sure to check it out.
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Live long and prosper, my friends.Topic List Using the On Double Click event to increment a date field
Assigning VBA code to the On Double Click event of a text box
Visually indicating interactive fields using formatting
Adding Control Tip Text to fields for user guidance
Using the On Double Click event to open a related record form
Writing conditional VBA to handle new records in double click events
Passing the current record ID to OpenForm with WhereCondition
Implementing double click events on multiple fields in a continuous form |
