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Create a shortcut menu for a form, form control, or report

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Applies to: Access 2013

When you are designing a form or report, you may want to provide a method for a user to easily use a command that applies only to the current context. One way to do this is to create a custom shortcut menu and apply it to a form report, or control. The shortcut menu appears when the user right-clicks the object to which the shortcut menu is applied.

In earlier versions of Access, you could use the Customize dialog box to create custom shortcut menus. In Access 2013, you must use Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) code to create a shortcut menu. This article describes you how to create a shortcut menu using VBA.

To create a shortcut menu, you first have to create a CommandBar object. The CommandBar object represents the shortcut menu. Then, you use the Add method to create CommandBarControl objects. Each time that you create a CommandBarControl object, a command is added to the shortcut menu.

The following example creates a shortcut menu named SimpleShortcutMenu that contains two commands, Remove Filter/Sort and Filter by Selection.

Note

To use the following examples, you must set a reference to the Microsoft Office 15.0 Object Library. See Set References to Type Libraries for more information about how to set references.

Sub CreateSimpleShortcutMenu() 
    Dim cmbShortcutMenu As Office.CommandBar 
     
    ' Create a shortcut menu named "SimpleShortcutMenu. 
    Set cmbShortcutMenu = CommandBars.Add("SimpleShortcutMenu", msoBarPopup, False, True) 
     
    ' Add the Remove Filter/Sort command. 
    cmbShortcutMenu.Controls.Add Type:=msoControlButton, Id:=605 
 
    ' Add the Filter By Selection command. 
    cmbShortcutMenu.Controls.Add Type:=msoControlButton, Id:=640 
     
    Set cmbShortcutMenu = Nothing 
     
End Sub

After you've run the code, the shortcut menu is saved as part of the database. You don't have to run the same code to re-create the shortcut menu every time that you open the database.

To assign the shortcut menu to a form, form control, or report, set the Shortcut Menu property of the object to Yes and set the Shortcut Menu Bar property of the object to the name of the shortcut menu. For this example, set the Shortcut Menu Bar property to SimpleShortcutMenu.

The following example creates a shortcut menu named cmdFormFiltering that contains commands that are useful to use with Continuous forms. In this example, the BeginGroup property is used on several controls to group controls visually.

Sub CreateShortcutMenuWithGroups() 
    Dim cmbRightClick As Office.CommandBar 
 
 ' Create the shortcut menu. 
    Set cmbRightClick = CommandBars.Add("cmdFormFiltering", msoBarPopup, False, True) 
     
    With cmbRightClick 
        ' Add the Find command. 
        .Controls.Add msoControlButton, 141, , , True 
         
        ' Start a new grouping and add the Sort Ascending command. 
        .Controls.Add(msoControlButton, 210, , , True).BeginGroup = True 
         
        ' Add the Sort Descending command. 
        .Controls.Add msoControlButton, 211, , , True 
         
        ' Start a new grouping and add the Remove Filer/Sort command. 
        .Controls.Add(msoControlButton, 605, , , True).BeginGroup = True 
         
        ' Add the Filter by Selection command. 
        .Controls.Add msoControlButton, 640, , , True 
         
        ' Add the Filter Excluding Selection command. 
        .Controls.Add msoControlButton, 3017, , , True 
         
        ' Add the Between... command. 
        .Controls.Add msoControlButton, 10062, , , True 
    End With 
 
Set cmbRightClick = Nothing 
End Sub

The following example creates a shortcut menu named cmdReportRightClick that contains commands that are useful to use with a report. This example shows how to change the Caption property of each control as they're added to the shortcut menu.

Sub CreateReportShortcutMenu() 
    Dim cmbRightClick As Office.CommandBar 
    Dim cmbControl As Office.CommandBarControl 
 
   ' Create the shortcut menu. 
    Set cmbRightClick = CommandBars.Add("cmdReportRightClick", msoBarPopup, False, True) 
 
    With cmbRightClick 
         
        ' Add the Print command. 
        Set cmbControl = .Controls.Add(msoControlButton, 2521, , , True) 
        ' Change the caption displayed for the control. 
        cmbControl.Caption = "Quick Print" 
         
        ' Add the Print command. 
        Set cmbControl = .Controls.Add(msoControlButton, 15948, , , True) 
        ' Change the caption displayed for the control. 
        cmbControl.Caption = "Select Pages" 
         
        ' Add the Page Setup... command. 
        Set cmbControl = .Controls.Add(msoControlButton, 247, , , True) 
        ' Change the caption displayed for the control. 
        cmbControl.Caption = "Page Setup" 
         
        ' Add the Mail Recipient (as Attachment)... command. 
        Set cmbControl = .Controls.Add(msoControlButton, 2188, , , True) 
        ' Start a new group. 
        cmbControl.BeginGroup = True 
        ' Change the caption displayed for the control. 
        cmbControl.Caption = "Email Report as an Attachment" 
         
        ' Add the PDF or XPS command. 
        Set cmbControl = .Controls.Add(msoControlButton, 12499, , , True) 
        ' Change the caption displayed for the control. 
        cmbControl.Caption = "Save as PDF/XPS" 
         
        ' Add the Close command. 
        Set cmbControl = .Controls.Add(msoControlButton, 923, , , True) 
        ' Start a new group. 
        cmbControl.BeginGroup = True 
        ' Change the caption displayed for the control. 
        cmbControl.Caption = "Close Report" 
    End With 
     
    Set cmbControl = Nothing 
    Set cmbRightClick = Nothing 
End Sub

About the contributors

Sample code provided by Edwin Blancovitch, president of Advanced Developers.net, creators of Easy Payroll, a software package to manage your human resources, payroll, scheduling, time, and attendance needs.

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