Prevent textboxes from being auto-trimmed

Hi RandomPsychology,

I'd be quite surprised if Access was trimming on its own. Are you sure you don't have a Trim() function in your code?


Pete

Quite sure.  Try it yourself.  Once focus leaves a field, all spaces on the end are trimmed.

Hello Random,

Yes, this is how Access treats all text input. Trailing spaces are removed.

You do no want to prevent the on change event from firing, because that is the event you use, in fact. What you need to do is not leave the control at all. As long as the focus remains in the control, you can type anything you like.

Perhaps you can post here the code you use, and we can tweak it so that you do not need to mangle with the control focus?

Cheers!
(°v°)

It doesn't do the trim in A2003.
What version are you using?

(I agree that when you exit the control Access will trim, by the way)

Pete

I'm using Access 2003 (database version is Access 2000 format)

Here's the code that runs when the onChange event fires.

Private Sub txtSearchDesc_Change()
    On Error Resume Next
    If Me.txtSearchDesc = "" Then
        GlobalFilter(4) = ""
    Else
        GlobalFilter(4) = "[BlockDesc] Like '*" & Me.txtSearchDesc & "*'"
    End If
    Call WriteFilter
    Me.txtSearchDesc.SelStart = Len(Me.txtSearchDesc)
End Sub

Looks like you are using a bound textbox then - i hadn't expected that, but I don't think it changes anything.
If you temporarily comment out your procedure and use:

Private Sub txtSearchDesc_Change()
    msgbox len(me.txtsearchdsc.text)
End Sub

 You will see that spaces stay in the mix until you exit the textbox.

Therefore as markus suggests, you current code must cause the focus to shift and when it shifts it does the trim.

Yiu need to look at WriteFilter.

Pete
 

I'll paste the code for WriteFilter too, but basically it's the method that causes the form to update based on the typed text.  

Private Sub WriteFilter()
    Dim FilterString As String
    Dim i As Integer
   
    For i = 0 To UBound(GlobalFilter)
        If Not FilterString = "" And Not GlobalFilter(i) = "" Then
            FilterString = FilterString + " AND "
        End If
       
        FilterString = FilterString + GlobalFilter(i)
    Next i
   
    If FilterString = "" Then
        Me.Form.FilterOn = False
    Else
        Me.Form.Filter = FilterString
        Me.Form.FilterOn = True
    End If
End Sub

As you can see, it doesn't shift the focus by any commands, unless the focus gets shifted when the form is filtered.  I also tried checking for a space " " at the end of the textbox and immediately exiting the sub if one was found (that is the onChange event subroutine), but that didn't work either, because it seems that either the space got trimmed out when brought into the subroutine, or the textbox doesn't "officially" add the character to the string until after the event completes (if that makes any sense whatsoever).

Anybody have some more ideas?

Although you can't filter a form, you can use it to filter a listbox.

The user could then select a record from teh listbox and see the rest of that records "details".

Does that make sense?

Yes, I thought about doing that, but it isn't really what I'm looking for.  I want to do a 'live-search' feature kindof like the one in the newer versions of Outlook

I did some redesign of my form (moving the data into a subform and putting my filter fields on the main form) and solved the problem.  I appreciate all the good comments, but I think the credit for this solution should go to harfang.  I guess this proves that "Live Filtering" is attainable in MS Access!!  Thanks everyone!

Glad to help, good luck with your project!
(°v°)