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Garry Robinson
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and has worked on 100+ Access databases. He is based in Sydney,
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Access Unlimited is an email newsletter that provides free tips, help and information for skilled Microsoft Access users and related software disciplines.
Produced by Garry Robinson (known below as "Ed") from Sydney, Australia.
In this edition,
USER INTERFACE HOUSEKEEPING TASK
SAVE AS PDF FROM ACCESS
TOOLSHED EXCLUSIVES
COMPLETELY DELETE EMAIL MESSAGES AND FILES
MAKING YOUR BUTTONS MORE KEYBOARD FRIENDLY
MORE USER FRIENDLY SEARCHING IN ACCESS
RED BALLOONS
DATE BUG TO WATCH FOR
FRONTPAGE XP - FIRST LOOK
GOOD READING LINKS
WRAPPING THIS EDITION UP - SHARK INFESTED ACCESS
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USER INTERFACE HOUSEKEEPING TASK
As a computer programmer, you will always handle data entry into your forms using a mouse. But your users may not. Why not check all your forms to see that the Tab Order of the forms actually work in the order that they are meant to. Open your form in normal mode and hit the Tab key until you get to the last field on the form. If the order wasn't what you expected, open the form in design view and choose the View menu ... Tab Order. Now sort out the Tab order. Remember that you can hit Shift Tab to return to the previous field on the form.
This tip comes from Doug Thatcher who is a recent addition to the GR-FX team.
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PROGRAMMING THE SNAPSHOT REPORT SAVER
For only a short time only, you can read the latest article that Ed cobbled together for Smart Access on programming Access snapshots. Very handy for keeping exact copies of reports. More at
http://www.smartaccessnewsletter.com
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DATE BUG TO WATCH FOR
Try entering 31/11/01 in a date field (Non US format). Date entered can be 1/11/1931. Same applies to 11/31/01.
Easy solution. Make sure that your date fields are showing 4 digit dates.
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SAVE AS PDF FROM ACCESS
The last edition of Woodys Access Watch referenced the following detailed notes on how to save PDF files from Microsoft Access. Over 200 visitors a day to this page for a couple of weeks. Read more ...
Save Reports As PDF Files From Access
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TOOLSHED EXCLUSIVES
Starting this month, this newsletter will feature code and objects that are only available to persons who purchase or upgrade The Toolshed. This months exclusive download has been used on two of the Windows NT based Access applications that we have been working on lately. Here are my comments about this tool
"A really good alternative to Access security is a simple little form that logs NT usernames and times when people log and off your Access Application. This form also helps you find out something really important to developers. "The NT usernames of people who are currently logged into your database. " Now you will know who to contact to get them to log of the database and if you are really keen, you can also retrieve good statistics on who uses the database and when. Read more at the following address."
Links To The Toolshed Exclusive Downloads
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COMPLETELY DELETE EMAIL MESSAGES AND FILES
Want to get rid of a spam email completely. Hold down the Shift and then hit the Delete key. This deletes the email without placing it in your Deleted folder. That will save space on those big emails and get rid of those pesky little emails with spam content. The same applies to files in Windows Explorer if they are not worthy of the Recycle bin.
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MAKING YOUR BUTTONS MORE KEYBOARD FRIENDLY
Put an ampersand & in front of the most important letter of the buttons on your form. This will allow your users to fire up the button using the Alt key and the letter. E.g. Alt S to save record or Alt C to close form.
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MORE USER FRIENDLY SEARCHING IN ACCESS
To make searching easier for users, add the following code to the Open event of an Access form. (Replace Me!clientNumber with the (primary key) field on your form).
Me![ClientNumber].SetFocus
DoCmd.FindRecord "*", acAnywhere
What will happen now is that the Find Records button will default to find sub strings as the default option rather than whole strings. This will make searching easier for your users. The search string programmed above will find the first record that the form would have displayed.
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RED BALLOONS
In May of 2001, I had a story in www.smartaccessnewsletter.com on how to use the Office Balloon object to trap and display warning messages about data that did not pass data entry rules. I now do a very neat little extension to that process that turns the border of the offending text boxes to red so that they can be identified more easily. The following code shows how that is done.
If IsNull(Me!AssessmentStatus) Then
Me!AssessmentStatus.BorderColor = vbRed
.pumpBalloon "Enter the Current Status."
Else
Me!AssessmentStatus.BorderColor = vbBlack
End If
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FRONTPAGE XP - FIRST LOOK
Personal web server seems to have disappeared from FrontPage XP. Special server components are only supported using NT server of Windows 2000 Server extensions. Not sure what that means yet but if you are developing on Windows 98 or ME then you had better research this feature before the upgrade.
I am now managing vb123.com using Frontpage XP. This is 99% HTML site as I need it this way to turn the content into the popular Toolshed help file. I am very impressed with the way that FrontPage XP integrates into Explorer.
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INCHES OR CENTIMETRES
Have you ever wondered why some PC's show Access reports dimensions in inches and others show exactly the same report dimensions in metric (cm's). You can change this using the regional settings in the windows control panel. Open the numbers Tab and see the choices in measurement system.
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GOOD READING
More on the WAW ezine http://www.woodyswatch.com/access/archives.asp
Which format is best 2000 or 2002 in Access XP?
Well why not find out.
BACKUP ON WINDOWS ME
Windows ME DOES NOT come with backup. Read more
Still looking for a backup tool, passed a good review of MyOwnBackup a while back http://www.nt-eng.com/mob/
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WRAPPING THIS EDITION UP - SHARK ATTACK
There is a salt-water pool just 200 meters from our office that had a sign at the front gate the other day.
"Warning. There is a shark in the pool. Be careful when swimming."
I am told it was a small shark that got into the pool in the big storms. Why tell you this story you may ask.
Because you can come to our offices in Coogee and be coached through some of the tougher Access tasks. Then when you have finished your work early, maybe you can head down for a swim !!! Call Garry on 96652871 for more.
Ed. Garry Robinson
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Published 2001-12