On Activate Event to Highlight Active Form in Access

In this Microsoft Access tutorial, I'm going to teach you how to use the On Activate event to highlight the active form and turn it yellow when you click on it, to make it more easily visible to the user.

Harper from Seattle, Washington (a Platinum Member) asks: Is there any way to highlight the current form that has focus? Our database uses a bunch of different forms, and sometimes it's hard to keep track of which one you're on. I know how to use conditional formatting to highlight the field you're on, but it would be nice if the whole form turned yellow too. I tried using the On Got Focus event for the form, but that doesn't seem to do anything.

Update

• Thanks to Thomas Gonder for posting that the Activate and Deactivate events don't fire if you use acDialog when opening your form, or if the form's Popup property is set to Yes. For me, personally, this is never a problem because I absolutely hate the PopUp property and never use it. If you open a form using acDialog, that essentially sets the Modal and PopUp properties to true.

Members

There is no Extended Cut, but here's the database for the Gold members.

•  Database Download - Gold Members

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Prerequisites

• Intro to VBA: https://599cd.com/IntroVBA
• Variables: https://599cd.com/Variables
• Scope: https://599cd.com/Scope

Links

• VBA Colors: https://599cd.com/VBAColor

Recommended Courses

• Access Advanced 1: https://599cd.com/ACA1
• Access Developer 41: https://599cd.com/ACD41

Usage

• Form Level Variable: Dim StartColor As Long
• On Load Event: StartColor = Me.Detail.BackColor
• On Activate Event: Me.Detail.BackColor = vbYellow
• On Deactivate Event: Me.Detail.BackColor = StartColor

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Keywords

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