I have a form with a set of option buttons -- one for each listed author of
a document.  The user clicks one to indicate the lead author, or "principal
investigator."  In general, the designation corresponds well with the way
option buttons work, one author is the lead, and sometimes they pass the
title around.

However, we had a case where the lead author decided not to be listed on the
report.  It would be nice to be able to click on the selected option button
and have its value change to zero (unselect it without selecting another
button).  I've tried tinkering with various events (Click, MouseDown,
MouseUp, Change, BeforeUpdate), and I can't get it to produce this behavior.
If I insert a MsgBox() after a MouseUp routine that toggles the Option
button's value, the value of the option button will toggle, apparently
because the MsgBox steals the focus before the Option button has the
opportunity to change back.

I'm assuming that the fact that the Option button has the focus at some late
point (event), its value is forced to -1 (True), no matter how I change the
value at some earlier point.

I tried tossing in a DoCmd.GoTo() to  force the focus away from the Option
button before it had the chance to change back, but the DoCmd caused an
error.  Anyway ... I was able to come up with a workaround to solve the
problem for my users, just not a toggle.  anyone got any brighter ideas than
mine on this score?

thanks,
-Bill

This is just off the top of my head -- I haven't tried it -- but here are two
possibilities.

The easy one is to add another option button to the group and label it "No
lead author". I don't know what your macro does with the values of the
buttons, but this one could be some sort of "null action".

The other possibility would be to add a "No lead" button but make it hidden
(Visible = False). Then set up the Click procedures for the other buttons so
that if the button is already selected when it's clicked on, the invisible
button becomes set -- thus resetting the clicked-on button and leaving no
visible selected button.

In any case, don't fight the underlying implementation of option button
groups, which intends that exactly one button is always selected.

Unfortunately, I don't think you are going to be able to achieve this in the
way you envisage. There are 3 options:

(1) have an extra optionbutton at the end of the list "Don't List Lead
Author" - this is the accepted method.

(2) have a commandbutton ("Clear Selection") that set's all the optionbutton
values to False.

(3) Use checkboxes instead. You can make these behave like option buttons by
adding some code that unchecks the other checkboxes when one is checked. In
the mousedown event of each checkbox, you can test whether it is already
checked - if so, uncheck *all* the checkboxes. If not, check that box, and
uncheck the rest. You'll need to experiment to find which events to use.

--
Hope this helps.
Regards
ibby

Please post replies or follow-ups to the **newsgroup** so that participants
may benefit or contribute.