The problem is I keep loosing the Popup Toolbar (shortcut menu) ‘start group property’ when I create a custom popup menu. Even after reading a google search files…

[http://www.google.com/search?q=access+popup+menu+group&hl=en]

on search string (access popup menu group) … I had to read and reread the only one valid result I found multiple times to ‘get it’ so here is what I got…

First: To add the bars to custom popup menus and keep the group by property you create a custom shortcut toolbar.

There are a couple of ways ‘in’ to the control you need to get to. One way is by clicking into :TOOLS:CUSTOMIZE:> to get this window

 
Click on [New] and call it something, this case I used Custom 2
Then you will see this little popup show on your screen, you need to select items you want on the popup menu by going to the Commands tab and click and drag what you want into the popup window. Once you have the items you want, click [Properties] to get the following window.

 
You will see I added a few odd things, sort, open favorites, home, output to notepad, analyze , and analysis with excel. Now, on the [Type] properties, change that to POPUP and then [Close] and you will get a box telling you this thing will disappear and here comes the tricky part.
Notice on Image01 that item [Shortcut Menus] is selected, make sure you also have this selected now on your customize screen. This will bring a menu up on your monitor.
Now, go to the [Commands] tab and click the [Rearrange Commands] button and looking at this next image for guidance…

 
You see the Customize screen, showing the Commands view and the Rearrange Commands button.. that you just clicked to get the stuff on the right… click the Toolbar radio button and scroll down to your menu you created, in this case it is [Custom 2] and note that the controls you will see are the ones you added.
Now you may have gotten this far but by the MSDN describes this ‘creating a custom shortcut menu for access differently… the same way I self stumbled into and found. What I wanted to do was to group my controls and every time I tweaked the property to show this, it would not stick… So here is what you do, come into the process as I have described above and then…
Like in the image03 view above, click on where you want to add a group line, like to show it above [open hyperlink] and above [output to notepad] select the control and click the [Modify Selection] button.

See here, I have a line now above the [Open Hyperlink] and I am about to add one above the [Output to Notepad] by selecting the ‘modify selection’ and selecting the [begin a Group] property.
Now to make it show up on your form… in Design mode select Properties for the form and  as you see in the image05 below, on the Other tab, select the drop down of your custom menu you just made, in this case, Custom 2, on the Property ‘Shortcut Menu Bar’ and of course your ‘Shortcut Menu’ must be enabled.

What you will see now when you right click in form view mode of your form is your popup menu with the pesky group by lines showing.
 

 tada!

Justin Mead
Rocky Mountain Managed Information
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