Cursor and field selection

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This is a silly little problem but I can’t find how to correct it.

I am using Access 2003 and when I enter a text field using the mouse the remaining part of the field is selected from wherever I point. So if I point to the middle of the field, from that point to the end is fully selected. If I point 2 characters in, all but the first two characters are selected.

I would like to have just the cursor flashing at the entry point rather than selecting the field. Is there a setting I can change? I looked all over in Options and couldn’t find anything useful. I don’t seem to remember this behaviour from before but perhaps it has always been there and it took 10 years to start bugging me…

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When you move to another control using the keyboard (for example by pressing Tab), the selection behavior is controlled by the “Behavior entering field” setting in the Keyboard tab of Tools | Options…
But when you click in a control, you should position the insertion point where you click unless there is code behind every control that changes this, which seems unlikely. Are you sure you aren’t moving slightly downwards and/or to the right when clicking? That would result in selection text from the point where you click.

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When you move to another control using the keyboard (for example by pressing Tab), the selection behavior is controlled by the “Behavior entering field” setting in the Keyboard tab of Tools | Options…
But when you click in a control, you should position the insertion point where you click unless there is code behind every control that changes this, which seems unlikely. Are you sure you aren’t moving slightly downwards and/or to the right when clicking? That would result in selection text from the point where you click.

The selection behaviour when I tab is working correctly. This seems to just have to do with using the mouse. I just noticed it does it with queries as well. I wanted to sort on the second column of a query just now and it selected columns 2 though 4 and I could not unselect the others.

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Does similar behavior occur in other applications, such as Word and Excel?

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The selection behaviour when I tab is working correctly. This seems to just have to do with using the mouse. I just noticed it does it with queries as well. I wanted to sort on the second column of a query just now and it selected columns 2 though 4 and I could not unselect the others.

Problem solved. I remembered that I have had this kind of flaky behaviour before and it sometimes arises when the computer has been on for a long time and I have been doing lots of programming, both of which were true today.

I gave the computer a timeout to think about its behaviour and it has now acknowledged its bad behaviour and started acting correctly again. Must have been some stupid little conflict set up in RAM or Windows. Thanks Hans for letting me know I’m not imagining things!

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Rebooting your PC is often a good way to get rid of problems…

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Rebooting your PC is often a good way to get rid of problems…

I always thought having Windows lock-up and requiring a reboot was a feature?

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I haven’t had Windows lock up so bad that a reboot was required for a long time.
But sometimes specific applications (but not all of them) won’t run correctly any more until you reboot.

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Problem solved. I remembered that I have had this kind of flaky behaviour before and it sometimes arises when the computer has been on for a long time and I have been doing lots of programming, both of which were true today.

I gave the computer a timeout to think about its behaviour and it has now acknowledged its bad behaviour and started acting correctly again. Must have been some stupid little conflict set up in RAM or Windows. Thanks Hans for letting me know I’m not imagining things!

Were you stepping through code using the F8 key?

I’ve occasionally had this type of behaviour, which I suspect is because F8 is the single step key in the VBA environment and it is the Insert/Overwrite toggle in the ‘normal’ mode. I suspect that I’ve bashed F8 once too often or something or Access has got confused. Just my SWAG.

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Were you stepping through code using the F8 key?

I’ve occasionally had this type of behaviour, which I suspect is because F8 is the single step key in the VBA environment and it is the Insert/Overwrite toggle in the ‘normal’ mode. I suspect that I’ve bashed F8 once too often or something or Access has got confused. Just my SWAG.

I was indeed using F8 a lot. I hadn’t realized that it is Insert in the non VBA world as I always just use the handy key marked “insert” on my keyboard

The odd thing is that it wouldn’t let go. On the other hand perhaps not odd at all…

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I was indeed using F8 a lot. I hadn’t realized that it is Insert in the non VBA world as I always just use the handy key marked “insert” on my keyboard

The odd thing is that it wouldn’t let go. On the other hand perhaps not odd at all…

I have also had that problem in the past and have solved it by exitting the database then coming back in again

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