Access Form Backgrounds

[Spicealdous]

I have been asked to develop a set of databases to look more professional.

To do this I need to change the background of the forms to business related or professional.

Can anyone advise me where to look for these pictures?

 

[FancyPrairie]

There are many things you can do and places you can go to find a good background (even if all you want to do is tile a bit map). Here's one.

If you have PowerPoint installed on your machine, check out some of it's design templates and presentations. If you like one, simply display it on you machine and press the key "Print Screen". Then go into PaintBrush (or something) and paste it. Then save it as a bit map and set your form's background to the bit map file you just created.

 

[LittleSmudge]

Follow-on question

What is the folder where Access stores the standard backgrounds that it has to offer by default ?

And what are the vbalid file formats that Access can read for backgrounds ?
xxx.bmp is memory hungry and can take an age to load.


G LS



G LS
spsinkNOJUNK@yahoo.co.uk
Remove the NOJUNK to use.

 

[JeremyNYC]

pheh! Backgrounds on forms take up memory, distract users, and are an instant bell ringer for me--telling me the developer is spending valuable time on making things pretty instead of making things work well. I know, I know, this is one of those places where people have different opinions, but I don't use backgrounds in any forms for any of my applications. I make them work well, and that's what makes my clients happy. Very few of them want to pay me to put pretty pictures in their applications, especially because those pictures are such memory hogs.

OK, I'll take a breath and calm down now.

Jeremy

==
Jeremy Wallace
AlphaBet City Dataworks

http://www.ABCDataworks.com

Access Databases for Non-Profit Organizations

Please post in the appropriate forum with a descriptive subject; code and SQL, if referenced; and expected results. See thread181-473997 for more pointers.

 

[LittleSmudge]

Yes Jeremy - I totally agree. Pretty for pretty sake is a sure sign of an amateur.

However, there are occasions where the client wants 'corporate image' formatting on the key forms despite all the adice that you and I might like to put their way -they are the fee paying customer after all and a 'simple form background image' might do the job.

Thats the thoughts behind my last line in the post above

.. what are the valid file formats that Access can read for backgrounds ?
xxx.bmp is memory hungry and can take an age to load.



Regards,

Graham

 

[JeremyNYC]

Graham,

Yes, certainly. That point is well taken. I didn't answer because I don't know. I didn't respond because I'm a bit of a space cadet lately--too much work. Sorry. I definitley didn't mean to just ignore that.

I've used bmps any time I've needed an image on a form. I've never used a background, though, just a cutsey logo on the main switchboard screen. BMPs definitely are memory hogs.

To the original poster, I'm not sure ifyou can alter the look of the forms with the wizards after they've been built. I may be wrong, so do keep looking. But there are some general guidelines on how to make forms more professional looking. The first one is to keep things simple. The next one (note: I'm making this all up, and there are some who would disagree with me on this stuff, too) is to try to emulate the standards you see in other windows software. I'm no fan of the monopoly MS has, but I do try to match the look of their software when I design database applications. Primarily, take a look at the dialog boxes in the Options menu of any MS app. They're all very similar, and, except for Outlook, they make a decent bit of sense. Certainly, when you look at one of those dialogs, you know what each visual clue is telling you.

There used to be a great website called the UI Hall of Shame, or something like that. It got taken down, which is a _real_ shame, because it was a great common-sense look at what's wrong with trying to reinvent UI design. It looks like someone's archived it at

http://digilander.libero.it/chiediloapippo/Engineering/iarchitect/overview.htm.

Check that out. They do also have a hall of fame, and you should check that out. But first flip through some of the hall of shame, to get an idea of why independent, creative thinking is great, but can lead designers down some dangerous roads.

Other basic guidelines:
-Keep buttons in the same places on all of your forms.
-Use only one or _maybe_ two fonts in your entire application.
-Use only one or _maybe_ two colors other than gray in your entire application.
-Tab order is important. Make sure you get that right.
-Scrolling is bad. Don't require users to scroll.
-Scrolling horizontally is horrible. Don't even consider it.
-Remember the first rule: keep your design simple.

Jeremy

==
Jeremy Wallace
AlphaBet City Dataworks

http://www.ABCDataworks.com

Access Databases for Non-Profit Organizations

Please post in the appropriate forum with a descriptive subject; code and SQL, if referenced; and expected results. See thread181-473997 for more pointers.