ACC: How to Use Visual Basic to Change Application Title (95/97)

ID: Q141618

The information in this article applies to:

SUMMARY

Moderate: Requires basic macro, coding, and interoperability skills.

This article shows you how to use Visual Basic for Applications to change the title bar text, which is also referred to as the Application Title.

This article assumes that you are familiar with Visual Basic for Applications and with creating Microsoft Access applications using the programming tools provided with Microsoft Access. For more information about Visual Basic for Applications, please refer to your version of the "Building Applications with Microsoft Access" manual.

MORE INFORMATION

Unless you set the Application Title in the Startup dialog box to something different for your database, the default text that appears in the title bar is "Microsoft Access."

You can manually change the Application Title property of a database by clicking Startup on the Tools menu, and then typing a new name in the Application Title box. Then, whenever you open the database, the title bar text displays the name that you typed.

You can also use Visual Basic for applications to programmatically change the Application Title setting every time the database opens. As an example, the following steps demonstrate how to set the Application Title to the name of the current database and the name of the current user in the database:

1. Create a module and type the following procedures: 

      Function SetApplicationTitle(ByVal MyTitle As String)
         If SetStartupProperty("AppTitle", dbText, MyTitle) Then
            Application.RefreshTitleBar
         Else
            Msgbox "ERROR: Could not set Application Title"
         End If
      End Function

      Function SetStartupProperty(prpName As String, _
            prpType As Variant, prpValue As Variant) As Integer
         Dim DB As DATABASE, PRP As Property, WS As Workspace
         Const ERROR_PROPNOTFOUND = 3270

         Set DB = CurrentDb()

         ' Set the startup property value.
         On Error GoTo Err_SetStartupProperty
         DB.Properties(prpName) = prpValue
         SetStartupProperty = True

      Bye_SetStartupProperty:
         Exit Function

      Err_SetStartupProperty:
         Select Case Err
         ' If the property does not exist, create it and try again.
         Case ERROR_PROPNOTFOUND
            Set PRP = DB.CreateProperty(prpName, prpType, prpValue)
            DB.Properties.Append PRP
            Resume
         Case Else
            SetStartupProperty = False
            Resume Bye_SetStartupProperty
         End Select
      End Function

      Function CurrentMDB() As String
         Dim i As Integer, FullPath As String
         FullPath = CurrentDb.Name
         ' Search backward in string for back slash character.
         For i = Len(FullPath) To 1 Step -1
            ' Return all characters to the right of the back slash.
            If Mid(FullPath, i, 1) = "\" Then
               CurrentMDB = Mid(FullPath, i + 1)
               Exit Function
            End If
         Next i
      End Function
3. Create the following macro and save it as AutoExec: 

      Macro Name  Action
      -------------------
      AutoExec    Runcode

      AutoExec Actions
      ---------------------------------------------------------------
      RunCode
         Function Name: =SetApplicationTitle(CurrentMDB() & " - " & _
              CurrentUser)

   NOTE: In the Function Name setting above, the underscore (_) at the end
   of the line is used as a line-continuation character. Remove the
   underscore from the end of the line when typing the Function Name
   setting.

REFERENCES

For more information about changing the application title bar, search for "apptitle," and then "AppTitle Property" using the Microsoft Access 97 Help Index.

Additional query words: 

Keywords          : kbprg
Version           : 7.0 97
Platform          : WINDOWS
Hardware          : x86
Issue type        : kbhowto

Last Reviewed: November 20, 1998