|
vb123.com |
|
|
Home Contact Us Order our Software
RSS &
Newsletter
Get Good Help
The
Workbench
Find out who has
your database open, start the correct version of Access, easy compacting and
backups, change startup options, mde compile, shutdown database
Read and Download
Garry's Blog
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
or try our Aussie
|
Is Your Database Corrupt
?
Welcome To Tips-FX - Edition
5See all newsletters
Tips-FX is a email newsletter that provides free
tips, help and information for skilled Microsoft
Access users and related software disciplines.
In this edition
Finding Things In Reports
Building Documentation
Microsoft Y2K Guide
Dates Are Hard Enough Even Without Y2K
Controlling Microsoft Graph And Chart - Free Download
Good Reading And Useful Sites - Online IT Books
FINDING THINGS IN REPORTS
Have you ever wondered which page a certain customer or
product exisits in a large Access report. Unfortunately
there is no way to search the actual report so you have to
go back to the query behind the report.
Well if you use the following menu sequence once you preview
the report, you will find that you can search for a phrase
Tools ... Office Links ... Publish it with MS Word
Now Access grinds away and produces a fairly ugly Rich Text
Format document that does one good thing. It maintains the
pages as they are in the report. Now uses the Find command
in Word and search for the phrase that you are interested in.
Once you find the customer on page 45, you can return to the
preview of the report in Access and type the page number in the
page movement bar at the bottom of the report.
-------------------------------------------------------------
BUILDING DOCUMENTATION
During the last couple of weeks I had a couple of inquiries
about how we put together our help file for Graf-FX. We
actually use a budget priced product called Helllp! This
product works from within Word and generates and opens the
help file from within Word. If you only ever have to do a
small help file and wish to avoid some of the cryptic help
requirements of the Help Builder, its a pretty good little
program.
http://www.guysoftware.com/
If you like building web pages and are not sure about
building help files, there is an alternative. On your
form, you can put a hyperlink to your web based help and
there will be your help system. Not quite as integrated
but pretty professional none the less. To add a hyperlink
to an access form, in design mode, choose
menu Insert ... Hyperlink.
Now if you wish to make your web based help better, try
graphics hotspots. These are areas on your graphics (gif
and jpeg files) which you define as a hyperlink. Try
http://www.gr-fx.com/graf/grafview.htm
which has a series of hot spots that point to bookmarks
within the html page. In Frontpage, the first thing you
have to do is insert a screen shot that you have saved
in gif or jpeg format. Click on the image and a toolbar
will appear that will allow you to do things to the image.
One of these options is a rectangular box. Select it and
then define a rectangular portion on the image. When you
have completed the hotspot, you will be asked to nominate
a hyperlink and/or a bookmark.
These hotspot solve one of the hardest things in software
documentation and that is describing which button on the
form that you are actually talking about. ie click the red
button just to right of the second combo box and just
below the toolbar.
------------------------------------------------------------
MICROSOFT Y2K GUIDE (For home computer users)
Microsoft have a site designed for all those running their
business behind brick walls rather than in ivory towers.
Microsoft Y2K Guide -
Click Here
In particular the Access pages
Click Here
Note: That there is a fix for the serious Access 2 issues
but it is currently unavailable for downloads
One recommendation is to set the short date in your regional
settings of the control panel to 4 digits. This may actually
effect your applications but now a good time to find out.
The real reason for 4 digits is that at least the 1900 dates
that are supposed to 2000 dates will be visible on the screen.
-------------------------------------------------------------
DATES ARE HARD ENOUGH EVEN WITHOUT Y2K
In the following vb in an Access 97 form, I was trying to
generate a record set that I wanted to filter on two date
fields on a form. What I wanted to achieve was to find
out if a booking existed for an accommodation before running
an update query.
One of the date fields was referenced as follows.
fromDate = [Forms]![FX_StudentMatch]![FromDate]
and the recordset checked against the date as follows
if fromDateSave >= rstBookings!FromDateFld then
This code failed because I had a Australian dd/mm/yyyy format
on the field. To fix this and come up with a very reliable
method, I convert all the dates into their long integer
equivalent number using an Access function called CLng
The code that worked is as follows
fromDateSave = CLng([Forms]![FX_StudentMatch]![FromDate])
Dim rstBookings As RecordSet
Set rstBookings = CurrentDb.OpenRecordset("select FromDate, clng(fromDate) as
FromDateFld from Bookings where accomid = " & AccomIdSave, dbOpenSnapshot)
With rstBookings
Do Until .EOF
If (fromDateSave >= !FromDateFld) Then
MsgBox "A booking exists ", vbCritical
rstBookings.close
Exit Sub
End If
.MoveNext
Loop
End With
rstBookings.close
So the lesson here is if you are getting in a tangle
with dates, think about converting the dates into numbers.
If you don't like this method, try Adam Cogans suggestion
fromDateSave =
format([Forms]![FX_StudentMatch]![FromDate],"mm/dd/yyyy")
-----------------------------------------------------------
CONTROLLING MICROSOFT GRAPH AND CHART
A lot of the visitors to vb123.com are looking for help on
the Microsoft graph or charting object.
Here are a few places that you can get some help on graphs.
I learnt about Access Graphs by downloading the free Access
97 graph examples database from
Download
Here
---
Our Graf-FX data exploration and fast graphing shareware
program has just had a upgrade to its smartgraphs. Checkout
the features of these graphs at
http://www.gr-fx.com/graf/grafdem.htm
If you like the look of that sort of graphing form, you can
download the old version for free from
http://vb123.com/get/smartgraf.zip
All you need to do is import the form into your own access
application and add your own row source table or query.
---
Now you can try these online help hoops for graphs
Microsoft Access
http://www.vb123.com/toolshed/99_graphs/msgraph1.htm
Visual Basic 5 and 6
http://www.vb123.com/toolshed/99_vbchart/vbchart1.htm
http://www.gr-fx.com/toolshed/99_graphs/msolechart.htm
-- Advertisement -----------------------------------------
***** 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
Macmillan press have a facility where you can read quite
a few different types of computer books online. I checked
out the Access books and quickly browsed through a book
called Microsoft® Access 97 Quick Reference
The book came up with a good description on the use of
criteria in text boxes that I have pasted as follows
"Most of your data will be text data type. There are some
handy expressions for use with text criteria. To enter
criteria you need to be in the criteria cell of the Design
View of a query or a filter.
Steps
1. Enter in the complete text match you want. Access puts
quotes around the expression.
2. Include the asterisk (*) wild-card character for any text
you are not sure of. A single asterisk can take the
place of any number of characters. You can also use
multiple asterisks in one expression.
Jo*ns*n will find Johnson, Johanson, Jonsen, and Johnsen.
Access enters Like "Jo*ns*n" in the criteria cell.
3. Enter Not and then the text you don't want to match.
Not NY will find all states except NY.
4. Use the question mark (?) as a wildcard character for
one letter. For example, C? would find CO, CT, and CA.
5. Choose the Datasheet View button to see the results of
the query or choose the Run button to update records if
the query is an action query. "
The Macmillan site looks very interesting if you want to do
some reading of material on computer topics prior to
purchase of a book. The time taken to enroll and select a
book to read is about 5 minutes. No search facilities is a
bit of a downer as you have to go through each page one
at a time. But its free !!!
http://pbs.mcp.com/
---
Want a free read of an article on all sorts of computer
topics. Try
http://www.zdjournals.com/free_issue.htm
-----------------------------------------------------------
PREVIOUS EDITIONS
http://www.vb123.com/toolshed/news/issue4.htm
http://www.vb123.com/toolshed/news/issue3.htm
http://www.vb123.com/toolshed/news/issue2.htm
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.
Garry Robinson - Software Consultant
Click on this button to read the previous edition of Tips-FX
Published 1999-09