Edge Browser 4
By Richard Rost
3 years ago
Add One-Click Navigation Buttons to the Browser Form In this Microsoft Access tutorial, I'm going to show you how to use the new Edge Browser Control.
In Part 4 we will be making the browser a little more user friendly, such as adding "https://" if the user doesn't type it in. We'll make the ENTER key push the GO button. And we'll make individual buttons the user can click to visit specific favorite sites. MembersThere is no extended cut, but here is the database download: 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!
PrerequisitesLinks
Keywords TechHelp Access 2016, Access 2019, Access 2021, Access 365, Microsoft Access, MS Access, MS Access Tutorial, #msaccess, #microsoftaccess, #help, #howto, #tutorial, #learn, #lesson, #training, #database, Edge Browser Control, Navigation Buttons, HTTPS prepending, Enter Key Go Button, Favorite Sites Buttons, Web Control Customization, Edge Navigation in Access, Access Browser Key Bindings, Quick Navigation Buttons, Go Button Functionality, Web Navigation Implementation
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Intro In this video, we continue working on the Edge Browser Control Form in Microsoft Access. I will show you how to improve usability by automatically selecting the entire URL when the address bar is clicked, adding "https://" if the user does not type it, setting a default Go button so pressing Enter works as expected, and creating navigation buttons for quick access to frequently visited sites. You will also learn how to streamline your code by building a reusable event handler function for your navigation buttons. This is part 4.Transcript Today we are continuing with our Edge Browser Control Form. We are going to add some buttons to navigate the different sites with one click. We are going to make it a little more user friendly.
This is part four of my Edge Browser Control series. If you have not yet, watch parts one through three. Go watch those right now. What are you doing here? One and two and three. Then come back and watch four.
Alright, so today we are going to work on making our browser a little more user friendly. The first thing is whenever I click on this field, I want it to select the entire URL, whatever is in there. You will see that is a feature in most browsers. If I click up here, it selects the whole thing. Modern browsers will pop up a whole search list of things that you have looked for previously, but we are not going to get that deep into it. It would be nice to not have to click and then select the whole field.
I do this in a couple of my other databases and it is not that hard to program it. We are just going to click on the field, go to event, go to the On Click event, which is right up top here, dot, dot, dot. We are going to say right here myURL.SelStart equals zero. At the beginning of the field, SelStart is what character you want to start the selection on. Then myURL.SelLength equals the length of whatever is in that field by URL.
If your value that you are doing this with, by the way, happens to be anything other than text, make sure you put .Text in here because if it is a date or some other different formatted event or field with a different type of value in it, then that can give you a different result. But this is a basic string field so we can just get away with this.
Save that, come back out here, close it, open it back up again. If I click here now, there you go, it selects the whole thing. Just makes it easier to type in.
Next up, if the user does not type in the HTTP:// in there, I want to add it for them. A lot of times when you type in, you type in 5.0.nxt.com, hit go. But the browser itself requires either an HTTP or an HTTPS.
Alright, so we are going to put that in there as well. Right click, design view. For this now we are going to need an After Update event. Find After Update; that means after this field is updated, do some stuff.
Alright, what is the stuff? Well, if the left of this field is not equal to HTTP or HTTPS, then we are going to add it to it. We can pretty much just look for that HTTP and assume that the user typed it in. So if the left of myURL, comma, four, the left four characters, is not equal to HTTPS, then we are going to add it to it. So myURL equals HTTP. I am going to put HTTPS in here because today most websites, most professional websites at least, are secure. They have that SSL secure certificate. I have a couple of test domains that I use for classes and other personal stuff that I do not have a security certificate for because I do not do any e-commerce on them. But any real website is going to have an HTTPS. If they do not type it in, we are going to assume that. Then add onto that myURL.
Does this catch every situation? No. But it is good enough. Again, I envision this being an internal tool to visit specific websites. It is not really meant to replace your browser.
Save it. Come back out here. We are always going to close and reopen our browser. You are going to see why, especially in the next lesson, when we talk about different sites we try to visit.
Open it up. If I come in here now, type in 599cd.com, press enter. Nothing happened. I pressed enter. Nothing happened though, because we have got nothing tied to pressing enter.
So what can we do? How can we do that? All we have to do is make this Go button our default button so that when we press enter, it pushes that button.
How do we do that? Design view. Open up the properties for that button. Go to Other and find the Default property. There is Default and Cancel. Default means if the user hits enter anywhere on this form, except in a long text field, then it will push that button. Cancel means if they hit escape, it will push that button. So you can use that for an escape button also.
Alright, save it. Close it. Let's try it one more time. Open it up. Look here. 599cd.com. Enter. There you go. Boom. And it works. It adds on the HTTPS and it presses the Go button.
Alright, let's do another one. Google.com. Enter. Boom. Perfect.
Now let's say I am going to use this as a tool for my business and I have got a couple of sites that I always want to visit on a regular basis. Maybe your corporate site, maybe a site you go to get information, documents, whatever. Again, this is going to be a tool for us to use for our business.
So I am going to make a couple of buttons over here. Let's make this smaller. I will put a couple of buttons over here that are going to launch specific websites that I want to visit on a regular basis.
Alright, we will start with my own. I am going to copy this button here. Copy, paste. Then it is going to stick it behind there. Just drag it over here.
Alright. The first one we are going to do is we are going to go to my website, which is 599cd.com. Why? There is a whole story on my website. I will put a link down below as to why my site is 599cd.com. I am not going to go over it now, but it is an interesting story.
Alright, let's name the button first, bring up its properties. Come over here. Now, I am going to type in 599cdBTSButton.
Okay. Now, we need to put something in the button. So we are going to right click, build event, and notice what it called it. Normally, it is the button name underscore click. Notice it added Ctl in front of it. Okay, control 599cdBTS.com. I cover this in my developer class. But you cannot start a sub or function name with a number. You have to start it with a letter.
For this reason, I also do not like to start my controls with a number. I should do this intentionally. So let's get rid of this code block here.
Alright, I am going to come back out here. We are going to call this something different. So do not start a control name with a number. Let's call it the Load599cdButton like that, or not loan. You can loan 599cd something if you want to. Zero percent interest, of course. Load.
Okay. Right click, build event. That is what I wanted to see.
Alright, now in here, we know how to navigate. We have done it before. So wb.Navigate. We are just going to give it a specific URL: https://599cd.com.
Save it. Back out here, close it, open it. Now we can type in an address and hit the Go button or just click that button to go to a specific page.
Now, if you want to make multiple buttons here, you can do that. Instead of putting events in for each different button, let's make a function, an event function that we can just send the URL into.
So let's make our own function right here, Private Function. Let's call it LoadPage. Then we will send into it a URL as a string.
All this guy has to do is navigate to whatever URL we tell it. wb.Navigate to the URL. We are also going to change the address bar at the top so that it also shows it there too: myURL equals URL.
Now that it is a function, we can get rid of this. Watch this: get rid of that. Save it.
Alright, then come back out here. Now in the button... whoops, I double clicked on it. You do not want to do that. In the button, we are going to come over here to the event. For the On Click, I am going to zoom in, Shift+F2. We are going to say =LoadPage, and then our URL, https://599cd.com, just like that.
Remember now, because it is a function, we can use this directly in an event. This is called an event handler function. I have got a whole separate video on it. I will put a link down below.
Hit OK. Now if you open it up, it changes. You will see it works the same way. The beauty of this now is we do not have to put code in for separate buttons. Copy, paste. Let's do another one of my websites.
Let's go to PCRESale. PCRESale.net. This is one that I use for training purposes. Open up this one.
Alright, let's start with the name and give it a good name: LoadPCRESaleButton. Now for its event, I do not have to give it a whole separate event function. I just come in here and change this.
Now, this is one of those domains that is not secured. I will just change this to http://PCRESale.net. So yes, this is important. If they use HTTPS, make sure you specify the S. If not, do not specify it.
Save it. Close it. Open it. Now I can jump to that site. There it is. Takes a second to load up.
Okay. So now I have got my address bar. I will set the Go button as the default button. I can jump between these two domains, nice and easily.
There you go. Our browser is getting one step closer to being something pretty cool and functional.
In tomorrow's lesson, we are going to add a back button, a forward button, and talk about the ExecuteJavaScript command. That is more to come.
If you like learning with me, head over to my website and check out my developer classes. I have got tons and tons, many, many hours of different developer lessons teaching you everything you need to know about VBA and Access. Check it out.
That is going to do it for today folks. That is your TechHelp video. Hope you learned something. Live long and prosper, my friends. I will see you next time.Quiz Q1. What is the main goal of the tutorial presented in the video?
A. To make the Edge Browser Control Form more user friendly by adding navigation buttons
B. To update Microsoft Edge with new features
C. To replace the default browser with a custom one
D. To demonstrate security protocols for websites
Q2. What feature is added to the URL field to improve usability?
A. Automatically suggesting most visited websites
B. The URL field selects all text when clicked
C. The URL field highlights only the domain
D. The URL field prevents editing
Q3. Which property settings are used in VBA to select all text within the URL field when it is clicked?
A. myURL.Visible and myURL.Value
B. myURL.SelStart and myURL.SelLength
C. myURL.Locked and myURL.TextAlign
D. myURL.TabIndex and myURL.Enabled
Q4. Why is it important to handle data types correctly when working with the URL field selection code?
A. The selection code only works with Boolean data
B. Different data types may produce unexpected results unless .Text is used for non-string fields
C. Only dates can be selected in Access fields
D. Integer fields cannot use properties like SelStart
Q5. How does the video suggest automatically adding HTTPS to a URL if the user omits it?
A. Add "https://" if the left four characters of the field are not "http"
B. Do nothing, require the user to type it in every time
C. Replace all URLs with "https://google.com"
D. Use a dropdown menu to select protocols
Q6. What event is utilized to check and correct the protocol prefix after the user changes the URL field?
A. On Load event
B. After Update event
C. Before Delete event
D. On Close event
Q7. How is the "Go" button made the default so pressing Enter on the form activates it?
A. Set the Default property of the button to Yes
B. Change the button color to blue
C. Set the form startup property to DefaultGo
D. Add an On Double Click event to the button
Q8. What is the primary purpose of adding shortcut buttons like "599cd.com" or "PCRESale.net" to the form?
A. To enable fast navigation to frequently used websites
B. To show off advanced graphics capabilities
C. To increase the size of the form
D. To prevent users from typing in the URL field
Q9. Why should control and function names in VBA not begin with a number?
A. VBA requires all names to be uppercase
B. Function and control names must begin with a letter for compatibility reasons
C. Numbers are forbidden in all variable names
D. Controls and functions can only contain special characters
Q10. What is the benefit of creating a generic function like LoadPage for navigation buttons?
A. It eliminates the need to write separate code for each navigation button
B. It makes the buttons look the same
C. It increases memory usage
D. It helps track the browser history
Q11. How can the same LoadPage function be used as an event handler for multiple buttons?
A. By passing different URLs as arguments in the event property for each button
B. By copying and pasting the function multiple times
C. By assigning the function to only one button
D. By directly referencing the browser control each time
Q12. If a website does not support HTTPS, what should be used as the prefix in the navigation button?
A. "http://"
B. "ftp://"
C. "file://"
D. "mailto://"
Q13. What property should be set for a button to allow it to be activated with the Escape key?
A. Set the Cancel property to Yes
B. Set the Default property to No
C. Rename the button to "Cancel"
D. Add an After Update event
Q14. What main VBA command is used to instruct the browser control to go to a specific URL?
A. wb.Navigate
B. browser.Goto
C. form.OpenURL
D. page.Redirect
Q15. What is the overall structure of the solution presented in the video?
A. Modular, with reusable functions for navigation and user-friendly features
B. Hardcoded URLs in each button with no shared code
C. Reliance on manual input for every action
D. Use of macros only without any VBA code
Answers: 1-A; 2-B; 3-B; 4-B; 5-A; 6-B; 7-A; 8-A; 9-B; 10-A; 11-A; 12-A; 13-A; 14-A; 15-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.Summary Today's TechHelp tutorial from Access Learning Zone focuses on making our Edge Browser Control form more user friendly by adding navigation buttons for quick access to your favorite sites. This is part four of my Edge Browser Control series, so if you have not already watched the first three parts, I highly recommend going through those before proceeding here.
Our goal today is to improve the usability of our browser form in Microsoft Access. The first enhancement is to have the entire URL selected automatically when you click in the URL field, just like you would expect in any modern web browser. This saves you the extra step of having to manually highlight everything before typing a new address.
To accomplish this, we make use of the On Click event for the URL text box. The idea is to start the selection at the first character and then select as many characters as are present in the field. In most cases, this will work without issue, but if your text box happens to contain data types other than strings, you may need to use the .Text property to ensure you are selecting the right content. Since our address field is a basic string type, this adjustment is straightforward.
After saving and reopening the form, you will notice that clicking the URL field now automatically highlights the entire address, making it quick and easy to enter a new one.
The next issue to address is automatic addition of the HTTP or HTTPS prefix. Most users will just type in a domain like 5.0.nxt.com and expect it to work, but the browser control requires a fully qualified address starting with HTTP or HTTPS. To help users, we add an After Update event for the URL field. This event checks the start of the entered text and, if it does not already begin with HTTP, will prepend HTTPS to the address. These days, most professional websites support HTTPS thanks to SSL certificates. There are a few exceptions, such as test sites or personal domains without security certificates, but for the majority of cases, adding HTTPS should work well.
It is important to note that this method does not cover every possible scenario, but it is sufficient for our needs, especially considering this browser is intended as an internal tool for accessing specific sites and not as a full-fledged replacement for your everyday browser.
After implementing and saving the event, you should always reopen your form to test the changes. Now, entering a domain like 599cd.com and pressing Enter will not trigger any action yet, because pressing Enter is not tied to any button by default.
To streamline navigation, we set the Go button as the default action for the form. By changing the Default property of the Go button, pressing Enter anywhere on the form (except in a long text field) will simulate clicking that button. The Cancel property is also available if you want to tie a button to the Escape key, which is handy for cancel or close actions.
With these improvements in place, pressing Enter after typing a URL will add the necessary prefix if needed and load the requested site as expected.
Now, let us address another common scenario. Suppose you or your business frequently visits certain websites, such as a company portal or a document repository. To make access to these sites as efficient as possible, we will add dedicated buttons alongside the browser that navigate directly to these URLs with a single click.
For demonstration, I start by duplicating the existing Go button, placing it in a convenient spot, and updating its properties. It is good practice not to start control names with numbers, as VBA requires that procedure names begin with a letter. Instead, choose a name like Load599cdButton for the new control.
The event for this button is set up to navigate to the specific website, such as 599cd.com. Notice that if you use a domain as the event handler name, VBA will modify it with a prefix like 'Ctl' if your control name starts with a number, so always begin with a letter for easier handling.
To simplify adding more buttons in the future, I introduce a reusable function named LoadPage. This function takes a URL as input, directs the browser control to navigate to that address, and updates the address bar accordingly. With this approach, you no longer need separate event procedures for every new button – just pass the URL as a parameter.
Testing this, you can copy and paste to make as many site-specific buttons as you need. For another example, I set up a button for PCRESale.net, a site I use for training purposes. This particular domain does not support HTTPS, so it is important to specify HTTP instead. When configuring your buttons, make sure you use the correct protocol for each destination, or you might run into problems loading the site.
With these changes, your Access-based browser now offers a much smoother experience. You have a functional address bar that selects text automatically, smart handling of HTTP/HTTPS prefixes, and customizable site buttons for quick navigation. As mentioned, this makes the form an effective internal tool, especially for environments where certain websites are accessed repeatedly.
In the next lesson, we will look at adding back and forward navigation buttons and explore the ExecuteJavaScript command for more advanced control.
If you found this lesson helpful and want to explore more in-depth Access and VBA development topics, I offer a wide range of developer courses on my website. You will find dozens of classes covering everything from the basics to advanced techniques.
For a complete video tutorial with step-by-step instructions covering everything we discussed here, visit my website at the link below.
Live long and prosper, my friends.Topic List Selecting the entire URL when clicking the address bar
Adding HTTPS automatically if not typed by user
Setting Go button as default to trigger on Enter key
Creating buttons to navigate to specific websites
Naming buttons and controls properly
Writing a shared function to load web pages
Using event handler functions for button clicks
Updating the address bar when navigating via buttons
Handling HTTP vs HTTPS in custom site buttons |
