Using Date Time and Formatted Controls in Forms

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Base includes a wide variety of form controls for the forms you create. Date, Time, and Formatted fields allow you to have more control over the formatting of these types of data than a plain text field. The following article works with the Field Trips Data Entry form created in the Creating A Data Entry Form With A Subform tutorial.

Note: the Form Wizard appears to be somewhat inconsistent about when it creates date and time controls for fields defined as date or time fields. Sometimes you will need to replace form controls and sometimes you will not.

Open the Field Trips Data Entry form by control-clicking on it in the main database document window and choosing Edit from the contextual menu. (You will need to have selected Forms from the left hand column first).

Date Controls

1. Click on the text box under the Date label of the form. If the box and the label are selected, go to the Format menu and choose Group and then Ungroup. Then click elsewhere on the form to unselect the two items.
2. Double click the text box under the Date label of the form.
3. If the Properties window that opens is titled Properties: Text Box, close the window.

• • Control click the text box for the date field and select Replace With and then Time Field
  • Then double click on the field to open the Properties window.

1. The Date Format field lets you choose from several date formats
2. The Date min and Date max fields let you set minimum and maximum dates. They do not need to be chagned for this application, but there are some situations in which setting these differently could be helpful.
3. Set the Dropdown to yes. This creates a drop-down button in the entry field. Users can click on the drop down and a calendar will appear, allowing them to select a particular date.
4. Close the Properties window.

Note: If you are creating a form in design view, you can choose a date control by clicking on the More controls button on the Form Controls toolbar. A floating window will open with additional form controls, including the date control. If you use date controls often, you can customize the toolbar to include the date control.