July 2008 - Posts

Adding multiple attachments from a folder
31 July 08 02:55 PM
Rob Cooper recently made a post, Adding Attachments from a Folder, which shows how to add a single attachment file per row. But what if you wanted to add more than one file? One (highly contrived) scenario would be to add all of the files in a folder to one row, and do so recursively if requested, similar to Rob's example. What follows is some VBA code to do this, which borrows a bit from Rob's post and a bit from one of my earlier posts. However, I should point out this (again, highly contrived scenario) is meant only as an example and not something I would recommend doing, because if you are adding more than just a few files you can (ok, WILL) bloat your database very quickly, and in doing so can negatively impact performance and potentially hit the two gigabyte file size limit very quickly (see Access 2007 Specifications for details on database file size and object limitations). Read More...
Postedby James K. Rivera | 10 Comments    
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Naming conventions of non-eng languages
31 July 08 12:17 PM
Last week I asked about what naming conventions you use. As a follow up for our international readers—what conventions do you adopt? Do you use the english prefixes or are there standards specific to a language? We are curious… Read More...
Postedby clintc | 5 Comments    
Focus on Popular Objects to Speed up an Access 2007 Database
28 July 08 10:09 AM
Garry Robinson’s latest article for Database Journal is great look at some of the new 2007 features as well as being helpful is addressing a key user need, performance. He shows how you can use macros, TempVar’s and some VBA to profile your Read More...
Postedby Ryan McMinn | 1 Comments    
Adding Attachments from a Folder
25 July 08 07:40 PM
Someone asked us yesterday how to add all of the .jpg files from a folder into an Attachment field in a table. In this case, the individual wanted to add one attachment into a new record in the table. This could be pretty useful, so we thought we would Read More...
Postedby robcooper | 7 Comments    
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10+ reasons why IT pros hate Access (but really shouldn’t)
25 July 08 02:49 PM
Susan Harkins has a great post on Tech Republic 10+ reasons why IT pros hate Microsoft Access (but really shouldn’t) . Before joining MSFT I spent 6 years building Access applications professionally so many of the items ring true for me. No other Read More...
Postedby Ryan McMinn | 11 Comments    
Article: Learn to think relationally
25 July 08 11:33 AM
Learn to think relationally by Allen Browne is now available. Great advice for our non-developer audience. “As your database application grows, do you find yourself adding multiple Yes/No columns to existing tables? If so, you might not be using the relational Read More...
Postedby clintc | 1 Comments    
What naming conventions do you use?
24 July 08 07:45 AM
We are looking at ways to make our templates better starting points for developers. Some common developer feedback we get about the templates and Northwind in general has been to use naming conventions. For forms and code there seems to be three good Read More...
Postedby clintc | 18 Comments    
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How do you track bugs?
24 July 08 06:27 AM
We are thinking about building a light weight bug tracking database to give away as a free template. I’m curious—what systems do you use in your application development to track bugs and upcoming work items? If you currently don’t have a system— email Read More...
Postedby clintc | 10 Comments    
GNC Review of Access 2007
23 July 08 09:31 PM
Found this nice review about Access 2007 the other day… “GCN Lab review: The options are endless — and the learning curve is, too — but with Access, you get more bang for the buck than with any other program of its kind. Access has a reputation for being, Read More...
Postedby clintc | 0 Comments    
Community post: Peter’s Software releases VelociForm
23 July 08 08:20 PM
I got the following email from Peter’s Software: Los Angeles, CA For Release July 28, 2008 - Adding to its growing suite of Microsoft Access developer tools, Peter's Software announces the release of VelociForm v1.0. VelociForm is an add-on for Microsoft Read More...
Postedby clintc | 0 Comments    
Do you reuse expressions, forms and reports?
19 July 08 09:11 PM
We are looking at ways to make developers more productive in the next release. Tell me about how you create expressions. Do you keep a library of common expressions or look through previous work for examples? Are you super smart and always create them Read More...
Postedby clintc | 32 Comments    
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New Articles: AddMenu action, custom menus, shortcut menus, calculated fields
15 July 08 12:38 AM
The revised topic AddMenu Macro Action and the new topic Create custom menus and shortcut menus by using macros are now live on Office Online. Also, MVP Allen Browne is joining in the publishing fun with Calculated Fields . This is the first of four Allen Read More...
Postedby clintc | 1 Comments    
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Calling all Access user groups
10 July 08 09:41 PM
I’m looking to put together a page listing information about active Access user groups. Can you help? One of the things I love about working on Access is the community. It is chuck full with people who are passionate about the product and the changes Read More...
Postedby clintc | 4 Comments    
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Article update: IIF Function
10 July 08 09:18 AM
Chris Downs has revised topic IIf Function . The changes were in response to customer comments—the topic has been expanded to include more examples as well as information about using the function in queries. Read More...
Postedby clintc | 20 Comments    
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Runtime deployment questions
08 July 08 11:37 PM
Today’s guest writer is Neha Monga, the Access PM responsible for the runtime. she was recently asked a few questions that are likely worth sharing more broadly. Question: Is it in the design of Access 2007 runtime to be able to run in the SAME PC as Read More...
Postedby clintc | 73 Comments    
Article: Top 10 reasons to use Access with Excel
08 July 08 08:49 PM
Mark Gillis, who has written extensively for Access and Excel, recently published, Top 10 reasons to use Access with Excel . In this article, there are also five “sudden demos” that work together to build a Customer database solution based originally Read More...
Postedby clintc | 5 Comments    
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