ACC97: Access Keys Displayed Incorrectly on Form Exported to ASP

• Microsoft Access 97

SYMPTOMS

Advanced: Requires expert coding, interoperability, and multiuser skills.

NOTE: This article contains information about editing ASP files. It assumes that you are familiar with Active Server Pages, Visual Basic Scripting, and editing HTML files. Microsoft Access Technical Support engineers do not support modification of any HTML, HTX, IDC, or ASP files.

When you export a form to ASP and view the ASP file in a browser, label controls with access keys are displayed with their literal caption text. For example, a form may contain a label control whose caption is &Supplier ID. When you view the form in Form view in Microsoft Access, the caption appears as Supplier ID with an underscore under the "S." However, the caption appears as &Supplier ID when you view the corresponding ASP file.

CAUSE

Access keys are not supported in a form that has been exported to ASP.

RESOLUTION

When you export a form to ASP, two files are created: the frame file and the layout file. The name of the layout file contains the name of the form followed by the letters "ALX."

The only way to remove the ampersand (&) from the label caption is to manually edit the layout file. For example, the caption line in the file Suppliersalx.asp is

   <PARAM NAME="Caption" VALUE="&Supplier ID">

You can open the ASP file in a text editor, such as Notepad, and change the caption line, for example:

   <PARAM NAME="Caption" VALUE="Supplier ID">

STATUS

This behavior is by design.

MORE INFORMATION

Steps to Reproduce Behavior

1. Start Microsoft Access 97 and open the sample database Northwind.mdb.

2. Open the Suppliers form in Design View.

3. Change the Caption property of SupplierIDLabel to "&Supplier ID" (without the quotation marks). An underscore now appears under the "S" in "Supplier."

4. Close and save the form.

5. On the File menu, click Save As/Export.

6. In the Save As dialog box, click "To an External File or Database," and then click OK.

7. In the "Save Form 'Suppliers' In" dialog box, select Microsoft Active Server Pages (*.asp) in the Save As Type box, and save the Suppliers.asp file in a folder on your Web server where you have Execute permission. Click Export.

8. In the Microsoft Active Server Pages Output Options dialog box, type a valid System DSN on your Web server in the Data Source Name box, and type the uniform resource locator (URL) on your server where the ASP file will be located in the Server URL box. Click OK.

9. Start Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0 or later, or another Web browser program.

10. Type the URL in the address box of your Web browser to view Suppliers.asp, for example http://MyServer/Aspsamp/Suppliers.asp. Note that the URL depends upon where your files are located on the Web server computer.

11. View the ASP file in a Web browser. Note that the Supplier ID label is displayed as:

    &Supplier ID

REFERENCES

For more information about access keys, search the Help Index for "access keys," or ask the Microsoft Access 97 Office Assistant.