All Fields Not Displaying When Editing Records in Q+E

SUMMARY

Databases with large numbers of fields (more than 20, for example) may not display all of the fields on screen when you choose Add Record or Form from the Edit menu. Because there are no scroll bars, you may not be able to edit all fields in a record.

You can modify the Add Record and Form dialog boxes, however, to allow all the fields to be viewed. This procedure is described on page 40 of the "Q+E for Microsoft Excel User's Guide" and requires the use of the Form Setup command from the Edit menu.

MORE INFORMATION

By default, Q+E will break the fields into multiple columns to allow you to view all at the same time. This process can fail, however, when the field names or descriptions for the fields are quite long.

Q+E bases the number of fields that can be shown on a form by the amount of vertical and horizontal space available. On a system with VGA (640 x 480) resolution, Q+E has enough space to display about 18 fields vertically on the edit form.

The number of fields that can be displayed horizontally will vary depending on screen resolution, the size of the font in use, and the space reserved for the form buttons (New, Dup, Delete, Restore, and Exit -- approximately 20 columns).

If we assume a fixed screen width of 80 columns horizontally and subtract 20 columns for buttons, we can assume that Q+E can fit 60 columns worth of fields on the form. This works out to 2 columns of 30 column fields, or 3 columns of 20 column fields. It works out to only 1 column of 35 column fields, however, and all fields in excess of 18 (on VGA) will not be displayed.

To work around this problem, the Form Setup command must be used. The setting to be changed is Field Width. By default, all fields (or columns) are 25 columns in width. Lowering this setting may allow Q+E to display more fields on the form.

If you save your current query as a QueryFile, and reopen the QueryFile, your Form setting will be saved. Otherwise, the setting will last only for the current Q+E session.

REFERENCES

Q+E for Microsoft Excel User's Guide, page 40.