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Garry Robinson
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Is Your Database Corrupt ?
Welcome To
Access Unlimited - Edition
12See all newsletters
Access Unlimited is a email newsletter that provides free tips,
help and information for skilled Microsoft Access users
and related software disciplines.
In this edition
GOING TO THE VERY NEXT LINE
THE SUNBAKED CALENDAR FORM - A MUST DOWNLOAD
NEW FEATURES IN ACCESS - TRY THEM OUT IN GRAF-FX
ACCESS 97 PROPERTIES? - HAS ANYONE GOT AN ANSWER
ACCESS 2000 CONVERSIONS - GOTCHA (PLUS DECOMPILE)
DIFFERENT VISUAL BASIC GRAPH OBJECTS
GOOD READING AND USEFUL SITES
Welcome to the latest edition of Access Unlimited. In this edition you
will not want to miss the download for Sunbaked Calendar, a
different idea for searching the Microsoft Web site, some jobs
to be getting on top thanks to Access 2000 and a discussion on
features you should think about for your Access applications.
Plus the usual great links from around the net. Enjoy and if
you have any feedback, the lines are open Garry R
-------------------------------------------------------
GOING TO THE VERY NEXT LINE
Have you ever hit carriage return in Frontpage and ended up with
a large break between the two lines ?
Similarly have you ever enter text into a button control and just
wished that you could put a word on the next line without changing
the size of the button.
Try holding down the the Shift Key and then hit the Enter Key
Similarly a message box can look a little messy when you have
a big long sentence in it. Here is how you break up the lines.
MsgBox "First Line " & vbCrLf & "Second line"
-------------------------------------------------------
THE SUNBAKED CALENDAR FORM - 5 out 5 Stars
About 5 years ago when I belonged to MSN (before Bill had his
Internet Vision), I downloaded a Calendar Form written by
Brock W Denys in Access 2. This form was easy to get going in
my applications and allowed me to open a calendar whenever
the users double clicked in a date field. Well this form has
continued working in a number of applications and it even
survived Y2K. I also experimented with the Microsoft calendar
control along the way and it was slow and I had to get
end users to install it on their PC's (which was painful). In
the end I have stuck with the Sunbaked calendar and its been
a great addition to my Access software.
This form provided the inspiration for a 24 hour clock form that
I have discussed in an earlier versions of this magazine. Both
of these forms are now available in one download database from
http://www.gr-fx.com/wizards
If you already have the FX clock, download the calendar from
http://www.sunbaked.com/calendar.htm
This is a tool you need in your Access applications and it is
F R E E ! (please read the rules though)
-------------------------------------------------------
NEW FEATURES IN ACCESS - TRY THEM OUT IN GRAF-FX
Here are two newish programming features for Access that I am
very enthusiastic about because they seem to provide benefits for
end users. Try them out at
---> http://www.vb123.com/graf/
SubDataSheets
Access 2000 has a feature called SubDataSheets that will allow
you to see related records from tables/queries in another table or
query. It does this by providing an expander button to display
the records. Read more at
http://www.vb123.com/toolshed/00_access/subdatasheet.htm
My big tip here is not to be scared of giving your end users
access to these subdatasheets. Simply opening the enabled tables
in readonly mode.
DoCmd.OpenTable "MyTable", , acReadOnly
If you want to see the power of these subdatasheets and have
Access 2000, download the latest version of Graf-FX where you will
will see the detail rows for any consolidation query enabled
on the fly.
Other features added in the latest version of Graf-FX include
. Consolidation queries and graphs can be easily sorted in order
. Total number of rows can now be limited to say 50% or Top 10 etc.
which compliments the new sorting options
-------------------------------------------------------
GETTING ( ACCESS ) ARTICLES FROM MICROSOFT
by Richard Killey
The Microsoft Support site has hundreds of articles, free for the
asking. There are two common ways to get these articles.
(1) Via the Web
Begin by pointing your browser to http://support.microsoft.com .
It used to be that the first time you did this you were asked to
register. I'm not sure if this is still required. It's worth it,
but if you don't want Bill to know anything about you, there is
always method 2 below.
Once in, you are presented with a search screen. Fill in all the
criteria and click "go". I spent hours here when I first found
the site.
(2) Via E-mail
This method is even simpler, and less time consuming, as long as
you know the article's reference number. Just send an e-mail to
mshelp@microsoft.com with the article number as the subject.
As an example, a common question on the Access newsgroups is,
"How do I get a combo box to affect the data that shows up in
another combo box?"
To get an answer to this question, send an e-mail to
mshelp@microsoft.com with a subject of Q97624. The answer will
usually come back to your e-mail in-box within a few minutes.
There have been times, however, when it took overnight. If I am
in a hurry, I can always revert to method 1.
Here are some other Access 97 articles to get you started:
· Q162067 - articles about Reports
· Q162066 - articles about Forms
· Q162065 - articles about Queries
· Q162062 - articles about User Interface and Miscellaneous
· Q162064 - articles about Tables and Database Design
· Q162065 - articles about Queries
· Q162068 - articles about Modules, Macros, and Expressions
· Q162069 - articles about Internet Features
· Q162070 - articles about Interoperability
Here's a problem I have seen mentioned often:
· Q191224 - Microsoft Access cannot open because there is no
license for it on this machine.
A comprehensive list of Access article numbers can be found at
http://www.netfolk.co.uk/netfolk/access/articles/index.html
Richard Killey is an Access trainer/programmer in Winnipeg, MB,
Canada. You can visit his Access Tips Site at
http://www.comeandread.com/access or e-mail him at
msaccess@comeandread.com .
-------------------------------------------------------
ACCESS 97 PROPERTIES? - HAS ANYONE GOT AN ANSWER
In A97 how do you create the DB Title property (and others) in
a DB that is created in code as part of an application. The DB
is empty when initially created and has no properties set and
indeed some don't even exist until they are initially set. It is
easy enough to create the property in code from within the New DB
itself, but the requirement is to create it in the New DB from the
first DB immediately after the first database creates the New one.
The particular properties are those you see from the System tab in
File|Properties menu.
Any insights into this would be appreciated.
Regards
Peter Hallinan <peter @ 3rdmillennium.com.au>
Anyone how answers this question will receive a free copy of
"The Toolshed" plus a copy of Peter's software database
synchronizer.
=================================================
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Try out the new electronics section at Amazon.
Click here to enter the store at places suited to
the readership of this magazine
http://www.vb123.com#software
================================================
-------------------------------------------------------
ACCESS 2000 CONVERSIONS - GOTCHA (PLUS DECOMPILE)
I was writing an Access article where I need to change the properties
of a query in the database using DAO (the old method) because the
new method in ADO did not provide that sort of Jet functionality.
The declarations in my code were
Dim db As Database
Dim tdf As TableDef
Dim prp1 As Property
Most of the software worked but one thing didn't and the error
message suggested something that was ambiguous in the help. The
reason I eventually found was that the software was using the ADO
library rather than the DAO library for my declarations and some
methods were not supported. So after many hours of hacking
around, I found that I had to changed the declarations to
Dim db As DAO.Database
Dim tdf As DAO.TableDef
Dim prp1 As DAO.property
This fixed my problem. The simpler but more error prone
alternative is to look at the library references and move
the DAO reference to be higher than the ADO reference.
This would be good at the start of a conversion but would
still leave open the issues encountered here.
Other DAO references you need to change using Find and Replace
will be
as Container -> as DAO.Container
as Workspace -> as DAO.Workspace
as Document -> as DAO.Document
as Property -> as DAO.Property
as TableDef -> as DAO.TableDef
as QueryDef -> as DAO.QueryDef
as Recordset -> as DAO.Recordset
as dbEngine -> as DAO.dbEngine
as Field -> as DAO.Field
Read more at
http://www.msOfficePRO.com/features/2000/01/vba200001sf_f/vba200001sf_f.asp
Now I went to convert a database and when I started compile all
modules I continued to get a GPF (General Protection Fault).
Remembering the / decompile option from a Sydney Access users
group meeting, I came up with the following addresses on the topic
http://www.mvps.org/access/bugs/bugs0008.htm
http://www.trigeminal.com/usenet/usenet004.html?1033
After decompiling the problem went away !!!
Another bonus is that the database did actually shrink in size.
Graf-FX.mdb shrunk from 4.4 to 3.5 megabytes.
Editor NOTE: Please do this decompile on a backup database
as you may damage your existing database.
-------------------------------------------------------
DIFFERENT VISUAL BASIC GRAPH OBJECTS
Every now and again I get questioned as to alternatives to the
Microsoft chart and graphs controls that can used in Visual Basic.
Cannot make a recommendation but zdnet had a pretty good write up
about the different graph objects as follows
Chart FX
ChartPro
Graphics Server
ProEssentials
Olectra Chart
http://www.zdnet.com/products/stories/reviews/0,4161,316854,00.html
------------------------------------------
GOOD READING AND USEFUL SITES
A really serious discussion on how to add your own splash screen
to an Access application and replace the Access application
splash screen. Good article
http://www.advisor.com/wArticle.nsf/w/AV9901.FISHS01
Paul Letwin's site
http://www.mcwtech.com/Downloads.htm
Access 2000 - Useful Changes
http://www.zdnet.com/zdhelp/stories/main/0,5594,2214470,00.html
DAO isn't going away
http://www.microsoft.com/Accessdev/ARTICLES/AC201.HTM#WORKING
Parameters in Access queries - A quick tip
http://www.advisor.com/wArticle.nsf/w/AV9912.EDWAK015
Saving and returning default values in Access
thttp://www.advisor.com/wArticle.nsf/w/AV9912.DUNND
Thinking about converting your Access 2000 applications to ADO
Try these thoughts from Mary Chipman
http://www.advisor.com/wArticle.nsf/w/AV9911.CHIPM13
Ken Getz passes some early comments on converting from DAO to ADO
http://www.advisor.com/wArticle.nsf/w/MMB9902.GETZK15
This link presents a broad array of resources to help IT professionals
deploy Office 2000 more easily and efficiently. Thats Microsofts
view anyway !
http://microsoft.com/office/enterprise/deployment/default.htm
------------------------------------------
LAST EDITION
http://www.vb123.com/toolshed/news/issue11.htm
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---> http://www.vb123.com/graf/
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---> http://www.gr-fx.com/classes/
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the articles and information pages at www.vb123.com
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So thanks for reading our popular newsletter.
Feel free to make comments, copy the email to a friend
or maybe even contribute to the next edition.
°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°
Garry Robinson - Software Consultant
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