IsVisible and HideDuplicate property allow the user to hide the duplicate and repetitive fields in Microsoft Access but there is a small difference between the two. The article sums up the functioning of these two properties.
MS Access is one of the reliable solution for managing databases in small and midsized firms. A common problem faced by users of Access databases is the unnecessary repetition of records in text fields. It can however be dealt with IsVisible property. The Duplicate fields make the database complicated and complex to understand. In this article, we will have a closer look at the IsVisible property and Hide Duplicate feature of MS Access.
The IsVisible Property
IsVisible property in MS Access helps the users in determining if the control on a report is visible or not. The IsVisible property uses the settings in the following manner-
True – The control is visible.
False – The control isn’t visible.
The property is set to ‘True’ by default. It normally gives a true or false value as per the report control, if the HideDuplicates property has been set to Yes. Users must remember that they can only set the IsVisible property in the report’s ‘Print event’ section that contains the control.
The IsVisible property along with the HideDuplicates property is useful in determining the control on a report is visible and shows or hides other controls as a result.
For example, you could hide a line control when a text box control is hidden, because it contains duplicate values.
HideDuplicate Property
It’s often observed while working with MS access that the data when pulled together causes repetition and duplicate values. However, it’s easier to avoid redundancy with the Hide Duplicate feature. Users can find the property on the format tab of the properties sheet. In the design view report, users need to double click the control which displays duplicate values and are required to set the HideDuplicate property to Yes.
There are many ‘One to many’ relations in Relational Databases. MS Access allows users to hide the duplicate values using HideDuplicate property but in many cases, the required records from text fields also hide.
How to avoid Duplicate Fields
To illustrate the problem, we can take an example of a database containing Order ID, Date, Company, Quantity etc as fields. The date and company records are occurring multiple times and we wish to hide the unnecessary records. By using the IsVisible property of Order ID, we can hide the values and records of Order date and Company name and provide it a condition.
The control Source actually tests the IsVisible property of the OrderID. If it’s visible, it will display the OrderDate, but if it’s not, it will show null. The same way users can also set the control source of other text field such as Company name to hide the repeated values by giving the following command
=IIf(OrderID.IsVisible,[CompanyName],Null)
Important Points
IsVisible property is not same as Visible property of MS Access, as IsVisible is unavailable at design time. It can only be set when the report runs or executes.
Users can use HideDuplicate property and it is advised to use IsVisible only when it is urgently required.
For small business who use MS Access for their day to day work, investing in an accdb repair tool is a must for avoiding incidents of data loss.
Author Introduction:
Vivian Stevens is a data recovery expert in DataNumen, Inc., which is the world leader in data recovery technologies, including fix SQL Server and excel recovery software products. For more information visit www.datanumen.com
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