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IT 240 -- Extra feature for Homework H5

The following discussion explains how to create a splash screen for your Midwest Sports database.

• Functionality. When the database is opened, the splash screen displays 5 seconds and then closes. Immediately after the splash screen closes the switchboard automatically opens. The switchboard remains open until the user presses the Exit button.
• Implementing Functionality.
  1. The splash screen. First create your splash screen form. Then, under Macros, create an AutoExec macro. Be sure you name the macro AutoExec. For the Action, chose OpenForm. In the Action Arguments pane, the View should be Form and the Form Name should be whatever you called the form.
  2. To open the switchboard when the splash screen closes, we need another macro. Create a macro in design view. Action: OpenForm, Form Name: Switchboard, View: Form. Now close and name your macro.
  3. To close the splash screen, create a third macro. Actiion: Close, Object Type: Form, Object Name: whatever you named your splash screen form.
  4. To coordinate all the opening and closing of forms, you will need to have the correct event handlers activated. Go to your splash form and open it in Design view. Drop down the Properties list for the form. The On Close Event should be set to whatever you called the macro that opened the switchboard. To get your splash form to close after five seconds, you need to
     • have the On Timer Event set to whatever you called your macro that closes the splash form, and
     • have the Timer Interval set to 5000 (the Timer Interval is measured in milli-seconds).

• Test your switchboard completely to be sure it works correctly. Also, close your database and then re-open it to test that the AutoExec macro is working properly.