Access Unlimited - Edition 04

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The Toolshed
Searchable help file comprising of all the information at vb123.com plus hidden downloads etc. Read More

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Libraries of software that we regularly import into our projects. Enhances the Toolshed More..

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Datamining/Graphs
Explore your data with this versatile graphing and data mining shareware tool. Read More

Garry's Blog
Find out a few other things that Garry has been writing about Microsoft Access. Read more

About The Editor Garry Robinson writes for a number of popular computer magazines, is now a book author and has worked on 100+ Access databases. He is based in Sydney, Australia
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Welcome To Access Unlimited - Edition 4
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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

MICROSOFT SOLUTIONS DATABASE
ANNOUNCING VB123 - THE SOFTWARE RESOURCE SITE
MAKING ARROW KEYS WORK IN CONTINUOUS FORMS VIEW
INDEXING FIELDS IN MICROSOFT ACCESS
MAKING EXCEL A REPORTING AND GRAPHING TOOL
CONTROLLING MICROSOFT GRAPH
PLACES TO SUBMIT YOUR SHAREWARE
GOOD READING AND USEFUL SITES
IN THE PRESS

MICROSOFT SOLUTIONS DATABASE

Tucked away in the Microsoft Office directory is a file called Solutions.mdb. This list gives a brief outline of all the different things that you are likely to find in that database.

General Application Help
Sample forms
Query by form
Using queries with forms and reports
Control what you print on reports
Calculate totals on reports
Create advanced reports
Sample reports
Work with combo boxes, list boxes, subforms, and subreports
Work with forms and controls
The Web And Other Things

For more on what you can find in this valuable learning tool
http://www.vb123.com/toolshed/99_free/solutions.htm

MAKING ARROW KEYS WORK IN CONTINUOUS FORMS VIEW

The other day I was asked to make the down arrow key work in a continuous record form in Access. If you have ever been frustrated why you cannot get down arrow support in
these forms, you are not the only one.   After searching around for a while, I think I have come up with a general solution. To implement it, copy this code into the visual
basic section of any form that you need this functionality.

Private Sub Form_Load()
Me.KeyPreview = True
End Sub

Private Sub Form_KeyDown(KeyCode As Integer, Shift As Integer)
On Error Resume Next
Select Case KeyCode
    Case vbKeyDown
      ' Go to the next record
       DoCmd.GoToRecord , , acNext
    Case vbKeyUp
      ' Go to the previous record
       DoCmd.GoToRecord , , acPrevious
End Select
End Sub

Search Access for help on the "SendKeys" and "KeyPreview"
to find out more about these topics.

INDEXING FIELDS IN MICROSOFT ACCESS

Don't apply indexes to fields that contain much the same data. For example, indexing a Yes/No field is almost always a performance degrading operation. Similarly, if you have a
number field that only contains two or three values, and index wouldn't be a good idea. To check the number of unique entries in an index, use the Access DistinctCount property. Compare this value to the number of records in the table and you can quickly see if the index is doing you any good.

This tip comes to you courtesy of Adam Cogan at SSW who can be found at http://www.ssw.com.au.

SSW runs the popular Access Users Group in Sydney.

You can find a few other related indexing tips at
http://www.vb123.com/toolshed/99/indexfields.htm

MAKING EXCEL A REPORTING AND GRAPHING TOOL

I would like to hear from anyone who would be interested in purchasing VB code to automate Excel from Access or VB.

Send email to Garry ---> access@gr-fx.com

Running Excel 2000 and Excel 97 together. Some Notes

.. Excel 2000 becomes the default spreadsheet no matter what.
.. Use the "send to" menu to open a file to Excel 97
.. Having no troubles at the moment running both versions

CONTROLLING MICROSOFT GRAPH

Yep. Garry got another article into the Microsoft hall of fame (otherwise known as MSDN). This one gives away all the tricks on controlling graphs in Microsoft Access.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/periodic/period99/html/06sa/SA/SA99F1.HTM

Naturally this article wouldn't be in existence without the usual support of Peter Vogel and the Smart Access magazine

http://www.pinpub.com

PLACES TO SUBMIT YOUR SHAREWARE

If you have written shareware and wish to share it with the world, here are a collection of sites that you can place your shareware on. We have systems in place to send Graf-FX to over 75 shareware sites and can use these to publish your software to the web if you are interested

http://www.filefarm.com/info/
http://www.jumbo.com/pages/upload/submit.htp
http://new.freeware32.com/submit.php3
http://cws.internet.com/submit.html
http://www.topfile.com/cgi-bin/db/add.cgi
http://www.davecentral.com/submit.html
http://www.softwarevault.com/addprog.asp

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***** Graf-FX *****

Try out our popular Access shareware tool on your databases

Download a trial version from
http://www.gr-fx.com/graf-fx.htm

GOOD READING AND USEFUL SITES

Interested in discussions on the XML interchange standard
http://www.informationweek.com/747/xml.htm

Want to build an interactive web site using the features in Office 2000. This article and IE5 will help you out
http://www.msOfficePRO.com/features/1999/08/vba199908cm_f/vba199908cm_f.asp

Excel 2000 standout new feature (in Garry's view) is OLAP. This article explains what OLAP is and how to spell it.
http://www.informationweek.com/700/00olmsf.htm

Can you ever find what you want at the Microsoft Site. This article gives you some of the low downs.
http://www.winmag.com/library/1999/0801/ana0010.htm

Great site for links through to other Access, VB resources

http://baobabcomputing.com/databasecentral/Database_Technologies_and_Languages
/index.shtml

A run through some of features of Office 2000 (mainly Word)
http://www.currents.net/magazine/national/1716/covr1716.html

Lots of commercial and semi commercial Access products
http://www.mvps.org/access/resources/products.htm

Your looking for Access tips. Here are 10 more ...
http://malektips.envprogramming.com/microsoft_accesstoc.html

IN THE PRESS

Sun will provide a free product to compete with Office called Star Office. It runs under Linux and Windows.

http://linuxtoday.com/stories/9376.html?nn

Find out more daily news on office and databases at

http://www.vb123.com/#press

PREVIOUS EDITIONS

http://www.vb123.com/toolshed/news/issue3.htm
http://www.vb123.com/toolshed/news/issue2.htm
http://www.vb123.com/toolshed/news/issue1.htm

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Garry Robinson - Software Consultant
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Published 1999-09