Jeremy

The reason it doesn't work is that immediately after the mousedown event fires and runs its code the click event fires and takes away the control

I tried a few different things and couldn't get it to increment by more than 1 on the mouse down event...

However, I was able to get it to go using a slightly altered method:

Details

Option Explicit
Dim Increment as Boolean

Private Sub cmdIncrement_MouseDown(Button As Integer, Shift As Integer, X As Single, Y As Single)

     Increment = False
     If Shift = 1 Then Increment = True ' Hold the Shift key when clicking the button to activate auto-increment

End Sub

Private Sub cmdIncrement_Click()

     If Increment Then ' If the Auto-Increment has been enabled, then start the timer
          TimerInterval = 200
     Else ' If the Auto-Increment isn't set, then increment by one and stop
          Form_Timer
          TimerInterval = 0
     End If

End Sub
Copy

With this method, hold the shift key while clicking and the auto increment will work. Click again without holding shift to stop the auto increment.

One way to use only mouse-down, no Shift key, no form timer:

In my code below, when MouseDown event runs, it sets a global boolean variable to true, indicating the repeat action (in this case, incrementing a field) will start.  When MouseUp runs (user releases mouse button), the global boolean variable is set to false, stopping the repeat.

When the MouseDown runs, it starts a "repeat delay" -- the time that passes (half a sec or so) before the repeat action starts.  After the repeat delay, if the user is still pressing the button, the repeat action starts.  A "repeat speed" (CPU-dependent) is used to determine how fast the action goes.

The key is to use of DoEvents, which passes control back to Access, allow the coding to check for variable values.

In my sample form below, I use a button named IncrementBtn and a textbox named field1.

Jeremy

Found an even easier way without using global variables or the timer interval.

Details



Private Sub cmdIncrement_Click()

     txtCounter = Nz(txtCounter) + 1
     txtCounter.setFocus
     cmdIncrement.setFocus
     Sleep 200

End Sub

Copy

Then, in the "Other" tab of the cmdIncrement button's property dialog, set "Auto Repeat" to "Yes"

If txtCounter is null, the Nz function sets it to 0 by default and add one.

Next, briefly move the focus to the txtCounter textbox so that you can see the increment, otherwise, it will increment but you won't see it until you let go of the button.

Then focus moves back to the cmdIncrement button and then waits 200 milliseconds (just like the timer interval would do) and then, if you're still holding the button, it repeats the process.

You will need to make sure you have the following in a global module, if you don't already:

Public Declare PtrSafe Sub Sleep Lib "kernel32" (ByVal Milliseconds As LongPtr)


AutoRepeat doesn't let you customize the repeat delay or repeat speed.  They are fixed at 0.5 and 0.25 sec, which are too fast for me.  If the user doesn't mind the fixed speed, this is a nice and simple method.  DoEvents would also pass control back to Access, so the screen would refresh to show the increments.  P.S. Windows lets you set repeat delay and repeat speed (pic below), but only for keystrokes, not for mouse-clicks

Kevin Yeah, but the sleep duration basically handles the autorepeat delay because you get how ever long you specify to just take your finger off the button and you can fine tune before release or set an editable field in a table with various pre-sets that the end user could select from.

I did try a DoEvents and it didn't refresh the screen without the focus manipulation but probably wouldn't be bad to throw in to allow other events to process.