Textbox masking confidential item input with hide & show button?

[brucemc777]

Good Afternoon Everyone-

Until a few days ago the last time i worked in Access (if i recall) was somewhere around 2011 or so, and since i have an issue remembering what happened even a few minutes ago, i'm close to starting at the beginning. Fortunately with the extreme help from people in the Excel forums here i have worked in that for a number of years, so i am not completely clueless... (just nearly clueless).

I am putting together an Access project for a friend. We need to record customer Social Security Numbers (SSN) and Date of Birth (DoB).

Best case would be a means similar to webpages where it could be entered with momentary visibility by character, then obscured, along with a Show/Hide button.

Basically, to simultaneously use both the SSN and Date input masks, or replicate them in VBA.

Seems to me there certainly is a solution out there, but i have become rather frustrated trying to find it - Would any of you good folks be able to point me in the right direction?

Thank you for considering my problem and for your expertise and kindness!

-Bruce

[jdelano]

The TextBox has an InputMask property https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/of...tbox.inputmask

"Setting the InputMask property to the word "Password" creates a password-entry control. Any character typed in the control is stored as the character but is displayed as an asterisk (*). You use the Password input mask to prevent displaying the typed characters on the screen"

Will that work for you, or do you need a more bespoke control for SSN and DOB?

[brucemc777]

Thank you for replying!

What i am looking for is a mask for the textbox like the ones for SSN and Date that will provide basic input formatting and restriction AND the obscuration of the password input mask AND the ability to turn the password mask on or off with a user command button or the like. Kind of wondering if the same HTML/Javascript or howevertheydoit code used on webpages can be somehow used in Access...

[jdelano]

Okay, you could probably use VBA via the on keydown or keypress event of the textbox,
the textbox does have a Social Security mask but that just sets it to 000-00-0000 without the ability to hide the numbers (that I could see)

Perhaps combined with that and a bit of code to change the numbers to * (while keeping the actual value) and a toggle button.

I'll play around with it some, if you'd like. In between my grandkids visiting :-)

[jdelano]

I created some code to handle masking the SSN, you should be able to adapt it for the DOB.
My form has a textbox called txtSSN and a button to toggle viewing masked or not.

Private Sub btnToggleView_Click()
    
    ' switch between masked and clear view of the SSN
    txtSSN.SetFocus
    If Left(txtSSN.Text, 1) = "*" Then
        ' currently displaying masked view, switch to clear view
        btnToggleView.Caption = "Hide"
        UpdateTextBox txtSSN, Len(txtSSN.Text), True
    Else
        ' switch the clear view back to masked
        btnToggleView.Caption = "View"
        UpdateTextBox txtSSN, Len(txtSSN.Text)
    
    End If
End Sub

Private Sub Form_Load()
    
    ' when the form is displayed, make sure things are cleared
    txtSSN.SetFocus
    txtSSN.Text = ""
    txtSSN.Tag = ""
    
    btnToggleView.Enabled = False
        
End Sub

Private Function MaskSSN() As String

    ' change all the numbers to *
    Dim x As Integer
    Dim maskedSSN As String
    
    For x = 1 To Len(txtSSN.Tag)
        If x = 4 Or x = 7 Then
            ' add the dash
            maskedSSN = maskedSSN & "-"
        Else
            maskedSSN = maskedSSN & "*"
        End If
    Next x
    
    MaskSSN = maskedSSN
    
End Function

Private Sub UpdateTextBox(ByRef txtBox As TextBox, PositionOfCursor As Integer, Optional unMask As Boolean)

    ' display the post masked data
    txtBox.Text = ""
    
    If unMask Then txtBox.Text = txtBox.Tag Else txtBox.Text = MaskSSN()
    
    ' position the cursor in the textbox
    txtBox.SelStart = PositionOfCursor
    txtBox.SelLength = 0
    
    DoEvents

End Sub

Private Sub DeleteTheCharacterAt(ByRef txtBox As TextBox)

    ' remove the character at the current position of the textbox passed
    txtBox.Tag = Left(txtBox.Tag, txtBox.SelStart) & Mid(txtBox.Tag, txtBox.SelStart + 2)
    
    DoEvents
Exit Sub

End Sub

Private Sub txtSSN_KeyUp(KeyCode As Integer, Shift As Integer)
    
    Dim KeyAscii As Integer
    
    If KeyCode >= 96 And KeyCode <= 105 Then
        ' these are the number pad numbers
        ' this is needed because KeyCode is not the Ascii representation of the key
        ' but the number on the keyboard
        KeyAscii = KeyCode - 48
    Else
        ' some KeyCode and their ascii values are the same though
        KeyAscii = KeyCode
    End If
    
    Select Case KeyAscii
           
        Case 8, 46 ' backspace or delete key pressed
        
            DeleteTheCharacterAt txtSSN
            
        Case 48 To 57 ' a number 0 through 9 using the top keys

            ' this is the max length of a SSN, ignore the input
            If Len(txtSSN.Tag) = 11 Then
                ' remove the 12th character by re-applying the completed SSN
                UpdateTextBox txtSSN, 11

                Exit Sub
            End If

            If txtSSN.SelStart >= Len(txtSSN.Tag) Then
                ' keep the actual numbers to save in the DB in the tag property
                txtSSN.Tag = txtSSN.Tag & Chr(KeyAscii)

                ' automatically add the dashes
                If Len(txtSSN.Tag) = 3 Or Len(txtSSN.Tag) = 6 Then
                    txtSSN.Tag = txtSSN.Tag & "-"
                End If

                UpdateTextBox txtSSN, Len(txtSSN.Tag)

            Else
                ' inserting a number after a backspace or an arrow
                ' moved the cursor
                txtSSN.Tag = Left(txtSSN.Tag, txtSSN.SelStart - 1) & Chr(KeyAscii) & Mid(txtSSN.Tag, txtSSN.SelStart)

                UpdateTextBox txtSSN, txtSSN.SelStart

            End If

        Case Else ' do nothing
        
    End Select
    
    btnToggleView.Enabled = (Len(txtSSN.Text) > 0)
    
End Sub

[brucemc777]

I'm finally at the point of being about to implement this.

I had switched focus from worrying over the details to building the structure, and this project took a heck of a lot of hours more than i thought it would eat up - as i've got a family and for some reason wasn't born rich, am not bright enough to become rich and have not yet won the Publisher's Clearing House lottery (...), i've had to squeeze it in when i can...

I am looking forward to working with the code you graciously provided and reporting back.

Thank you!

-Bruce

[jdelano]

I'm finally at the point of being about to implement this.

I had switched focus from worrying over the details to building the structure, and this project took a heck of a lot of hours more than i thought it would eat up - as i've got a family and for some reason wasn't born rich, am not bright enough to become rich and have not yet won the Publisher's Clearing House lottery (...), i've had to squeeze it in when i can...

I am looking forward to working with the code you graciously provided and reporting back.

Thank you!

-Bruce

hahaha wasn't born rich, I heard that! I hope this helps and works out the way you need it to.

[brucemc777]

Frankly, i am thrilled with it. Not only does it do everything i wanted, but i am learning from how you code. The sequential blocks make my coding look, well, like spaghetti. Thank you VERY much!

[jdelano]

You are very welcome, happy to lend a hand!

Good luck with the rest of your project.