The next new part of the user interface in Access 2007 is the Ribbon. The Ribbon replaces menu bars and tool bars from previous versions of Office. I can guarantee if you've worked with Access before, you are going to be in for a loss of productivity initially as you try and figure out where all the commands have been moved.
Microsoft has done a lot of testing and development work on the Ribbon and they have moved everything around to different areas to categorize them by subjects. You are going to have to spend some time learning the Ribbon and all the various commands.
Right now, I am going to show you the Home and Create tab. If you click on any one of these tabs, you'll see that the commands on the Ribbons change. External Data and Database Tools, so click on the Home tab again and you'll notice that some of these commands are dimmed, you can't select anything in them.
Now as you move around, you'll notice that certain groups highlight. Down near the bottom where it says Rich Text, Records, Sort & Filter, these are called groups in terms of the Ribbon hierarchy. All these commands are grouped by a particular common subject, sorting and filtering, finding records, for example.
What I would like you to do is, click on the Navigation pane where it says Contacts Navigation, select Object Type and then double-click on the Contacts Table. Now, you can see a lot of the commands on the Ribbon have lit up and they are available. You may also have noticed that a new tab appeared under a category called Table Tools. A new tab called Datasheet View appeared as soon as we double-clicked and opened the Contacts Table. That's what's called a Contextual tab.
Contextual tabs appear to the right of the Database Tools tab and we'll discuss Contextual tabs as we discuss the different database objects in part 2. For right now what you need to realize is, a Contextual tab is like a toolbar from previous versions where a toolbar would pop in and out of view depending upon the object that you had open at the moment.
Right now, what you see is the Home tab and if you click on the Views button, you'll see what's called a Split button. This button performs two different functions. If you click at the top half of the button, it immediately changes the view of that particular object, but if you click the arrow at the bottom part, you can select from four different views of this particular object.
The Ribbon includes a lot of different rich, graphics and controls, small and large buttons, text boxes, drop-down lists, split buttons, checkboxes, galleries and a whole bunch more. It's a rich user interface. So as you get used to using the Ribbon, you will find that, that will be easier to find things.
Next, to the Views group is the Clipboard group. From here these are the common commands that you can use to, Cut an object, Copy an object, or Paste an object to the Clipboard. If you click right down here, this is the Clipboard dialog box, these buttons are a little hard to find but they are always in the bottom right corner of a particular group. So if I click here, the Clipboard expands to the right and it has pushed the Navigation pane and the Object window to the right. I am going to close the Clipboard.
The Format Painter button will explore that when we discuss forms in a later session, but this allows you to copy the formatting from one control to another control. This is a real handy feature when you are actually creating controls on forms and reports even.
Next to the Clipboard group is the Font group. Here you can select from different fonts that are loaded on your Windows installation, different Font Size and to the right of that, is the Text Align boxes. You can align text to the left, to the center, or to the right. Beneath the Font Selection text box is the Bold button, Italic and Underline. If you like to apply any of these to the particular control that you have focused on, you can click this and that will apply it.
Right here is the Font Color button and it has a little arrow. If you click that arrow, Access 2007 drops down a complete color palette and it has Automatic as the default up at the top. You can choose other Access colors, or you can select Standard colors that you like to see.
If you click the More Colors at the very bottom, you will see the windows what's called Color Picker, where you can actually select a specific color, you can select the Custom tab. You can even create your own red, green, and blue hues of a particular color that you like to use for a Font. I am going to click Cancel on this, so I can close it.
Next to the Font Color button is the Fill/Back Color button, and if you click the arrow on this one, you can apply a background color to the particular control that has the focus. Next to the Fill/Back Color button is the Gridlines button. If you click the arrow on this button, you will see four options, Both, Horizontal, Vertical and None. If you select the first one, you can apply gridlines to both Horizontal and Vertical.
On the Horizontal option you can apply gridlines to just the horizontal lines across. Vertical, just goes up and down, and None if you would like to see no gridlines. On any of these options that have a down arrow, if you do not want to select any of them, you can click off the box that appears or you can click the arrow again.
Next to the Gridlines button is the Alternate Fill/Back Color button, and this is a great new feature of Access 2007. When we discuss forms and reports I will show you how this works, but you can apply alternating back colors to different records in tables, queries, forms and reports.
Right here, this table has a back color applied. So if you were to add in some records, you would see alternating colors in the Datasheet View. I am going to click the arrow to collapse this one again, and in here, in the Font group, you'll also see another dialog launcher button. This one is called the Datasheet Formatting dialog.
If I click that button, the Datasheet Formatting dialog box comes up with quite a few options for formatting how this Datasheet looks on screen. You have different Cell Effects, Flat, Raised and Sunken. You can apply different Gridlines, Background Colors, Alternate Background Color and Gridline Color. In this box under Sample, Access will show you a sample of how the data is going to look based on the formatting that you are applying.
Now some of these options are going to seem a little bit similar to what I just mentioned as far as the Gridlines. This one dialog box allows you to change many of these options that you see in the Font group. For now, just click Cancel to close it.
Next to the Font group is the Rich Text group. The Rich Text group is next to the Font group and this particular group will only become available if you are working with a field or a control that has been defined as Rich Text, a new feature in Access 2007. What I would like you to do is, use the Tab key on your keyboard and Tab over to the Notes field. As you see, all of these options on the Rich Text now are highlighted and can be used.
Up near the top you'll see Decrease List Level, which decreases the list indent for a Rich Text. Next to that, similar increases the List Level indent. Next to that button, you'll see the Left-to-Right Text Direction, and there is a down arrow for additional options. You can go Left-to-Right or Right-to-Left.
You can even add numbering into your Rich Text field: Bullets and next to that is a Text Highlight Color. And here again, if you click that arrow, you will see some more colors, however, it's a very small list in terms of the Rich Text colors that this field accepts in Access 2007. So I am going to click off there.
Transcription by:
Scribe4you Transcription Services