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The Options dialog box, which you open by choosing Tools, Options, enables you to set an impressive number of database options. Generally speaking, you’ll be fine if you leave all the settings at their default values, but you might want to change a few settings. The following sections offer a general discussion of the Options dialog box. More detailed discussions of specific options are provided in the chapters dealing with specific database objects.
The Show options on the View tab of the Options dialog box (see Figure 2-22) let you specify which objects will be displayed in the Database window.
Figure 2-22. The View tab enables you to choose which objects you want to see in the Database window.
You can clear the Startup Task Pane check box if you don’t want to see the task pane when you start Access. You can make a similar choice for the new object shortcuts. With the Hidden Objects and System Objects check boxes, you can display or hide hidden tables and system tables. The Windows In Taskbar check box controls whether database objects have their own icons on the Windows taskbar.
Figure 2-23 shows the Database window as it appears when all the options in the Show group are checked.
With the Show In Macro Design group on the View tab, you can specify whether to display the Names and Conditions columns automatically in new macros. With the Click Options In Database Window group, you can specify whether a single click or a double click will open a database object.
Figure 2-23. This Database window has all the Show options selected.
With the General tab of the Options dialog box, you can set print margins, turn on four-digit year formatting, and set the default database folder and a number of other miscellaneous options. Probably the most useful selection on this page is the Recently Used File List option, which you can configure to display up to nine entries in the list of files to open in the task pane, as shown in Figure 2-24.
Figure 2-24. The General tab of the Options dialog box allows you to set a number of formatting options.
The Edit/Find tab (see Figure 2-25) offers several options for searching in datasheets and allows you to turn off confirmation messages for various database actions, such as deleting objects and running action queries. You can also limit the number of records to be displayed in a drop-down list.
Figure 2-25. With the Edit/Find tab of the Options dialog box, you can specify search behavior in datasheets.
The Keyboard tab (see Figure 2-26) specifies what happens as you navigate through text boxes on forms or in cells in datasheets. The default behavior is pressing Enter to move the insertion point to the next field or control and select all of the text, but you can change this behavior so that pressing Enter doesn’t move the insertion point to the next control or so that the insertion point is positioned before the first character, among other options.
Figure 2-26. The Keyboard tab of the Options dialog box specifies how you navigate text boxes.
The Datasheet tab (see Figure 2-27) enables you to select the font, color, and size of text displayed in datasheets. You can also change the appearance of table gridlines.
Figure 2-27. With the Datasheet tab of the Options dialog box, you can specify the default formatting for text in datasheets.
InsideOut
The Datasheet tab of the Options dialog box lets you be very creative (perhaps too creative) with datasheet formatting. You can format the datasheet cells with the Raised special effect, a purple background, and green script text, but generally it’s advisable to leave the text black on a flat, white background, in a readable font such as MS Sans Serif or Arial. If users find datasheets hard to read, it’s unlikely that they’ll know how to change the font, color, or special effect to fix the problem, so it’s up to you to make your datasheets readable from the start.
With the Forms/Reports tab (see Figure 2-28), you can configure a few settings related to form design. The Selection Behavior group specifies whether an object must be fully enclosed by a selection box to be selected, or just partially enclosed. The Form Template and Report Template boxes allow you to enter the name of the form and report templates to use when creating new forms or reports. The Always Use Event Procedures check box allows you to bypass the Choose Builder dialog box and go directly to the event procedure from a form, report, or control properties sheet—a real time-saver for developers.
Figure 2-28. With the Forms/Reports tab of the Options dialog box, you can set options related to form design.
With the Pages tab, you can set options related to the appearance and storage of data access pages, such as the alternate row color and the caption and footer section styles. (See Figure 2-29.) Unfortunately, the latter two selections offer no Build button or drop-down list of selections; instead, you have to type in the formatting string in a specialized syntax.
Figure 2-29. With the Pages tab of the Options dialog box, you can change the appearance of data access pages.
You can use the Advanced tab to set a variety of advanced options. (See Figure 2-30.) The only setting you’re likely to want to change is the Default File Format, which specifies the format of a new Access database.
Figure 2-30. WIth the Advanced tab of the Options dialog box, you can set advanced options.
tip - Work with Access 2000 and 2002 together
The International tab (see Figure 2-31) enables you to set a number of options useful in non-English versions of Access—for example, options that specify whether fields are displayed left to right (the order familiar in English and European languages) or right to left (the direction familiar to Middle Eastern language users).
Figure 2-31. Use the International tab of the Options dialog box to set options for non-English versions of Access.
Use the Spelling tab (see Figure 2-32) to set options related to checking spelling. Some of these options are specific to a particular language.
Figure 2-32. You can use the Spelling tab of the Options dialog box to set spelling options.
Use the Tables/Queries tab (see Figure 2-33) to set table-related options. Some of them are rather obscure, such as whether to use SQL Server Compatible Syntax (ANSI 92) and how to use AutoIndex when you’re importing or creating a table.
Figure 2-33. You can use the Tables/Queries tab of the Options dialog box to format tables.
Because of Access’s tremendous flexibility and the superiority of its design tools, it’s suitable for all database tasks, from building a simple home database that takes half an hour to create using the built-in database wizards, to building large, Web-enabled database applications linked to a SQL Server back end and requiring weeks or months of programming. In the following chapters, you’ll learn how to create powerful and easy-to-use Access applications that meet your specific needs.