Clint Covington: Software design, Microsoft Office Access

Can you believe, 3.5 million Access templates were downloaded from Office Online over the last 12 months?! This includes nearly 1 million Access 2007 and over 2.5 million Access 2000-2003 templates.Quite an uptake for such a new release. To capitalize...

Here is a link to a free 60 day trial download of Office 2007 programs. http://us1.trymicrosoftoffice.com/default.aspx?culture=en-US As you know, Access is in the professional version. For those of you outside the US , you need to use the following...

This morning we are announcing that the developer extensions and runtime will be available for FREE ! In the past, Access developers had to purchase the Visual Studio Tools for Microsoft Office System in order to build and deploy runtime solutions. The...

Access 2007 and Macros One feature that might be surprising to many experienced developers is the re-invigoration of macros in Access 2007. We have done a bunch of work in this area that we think benefits end users and developers in some scenarios. If...

Today’s guest writer is Access Program Manager Ric Lewis. Ric spent the last couple years with the Indigo team and just took an Access PM job. He is looking for some customer feedback on interesting web services scenarios. To start the conversation—he...

I'm happy to announce the runtime is finally done and for the first time ever--available as a free download! Microsoft Office Access Developer Extensions 2007 Microsoft Office Access Runtime 2007 Once again, sorry for the delay and the problems...

This is the final post of a three part series on Access Tips and Tricks provided by members of the Access team. This article focuses on non-obvious things new to the forms and report designers. The other articles in this series covered useful keyboard...

Thanks for your continued patience. The runtime download is available again. Microsoft Office Access Runtime 2007 There is a known bug where reports don't work in ADPs. We are working on a QFE for the issue. I will let you know when more information...

There is more information coming shortly.Unfortunately, I'm on jury duty for the next three weeks and will not be able to provide updates. FWIW - I haven't worked on the runtime project, so my jury duty won't effect availability. The Access blog will...

Quick update on the runtime ship date--the test team found a recall class bug in setup that will cause us to slip the schedule by a couple weeks. I will let you know if I hear anything different. Sorry for the delay.

I'm truly sorry that this is dragging on longer than I ever expected. Am I frustrated? Yes. Just before the runtime was to be released a critical bug in setup was found that caused setup to not install on random machines. Multiple attempts to fix the...

I have been working on a three part series of non-obvious tips and tricks for using Access 2007. The other series will be on designing forms and reports and my favorite keyboard shortcuts. I put together a rough draft of this series and sent it around...

Today’s guest writer is Ric Lewis. Several weeks ago he started a general discussion about web services which turned out to be a popular post. This week he is providing the details of the books sample database. It would be sweet if someone takes this...

The team is considering some refinements to the navigation pane . What do you like about the changes? How would you like to see it improved? If we added an OM would you use it? Do you use the new tables and views mode? I have a feeling there will be...

Alan Cossey recently sent me a overview of how Cool As Ice is using Office Live and Access to track process information. He has found a couple bugs we will fix in SP 1 but overall it is working nicely for them. I thought some of you might appreciate seeing...

Those of you that have started using Access 2007 know that you can get rid of the annoying security dialogs and message bar via trusted locations. A new article was just published that tells you how to configure trusted locations and trusted publishers...

Access 2007 introduces a ton of new filtering tools that make it much easier to cut and slice data in different ways. I’m very happy about the new experience and think developers will spend far less time building filtering functionality because of the...

I have a confession to make… I started hacking around in computers with Windows 3.1—never learned how to really use the command line. I know—I have fallen from grace for many of you developers. The mouse has been my friend. I’m trying to change and use...

A couple of months ago I spent a few days learning how to write XML for ribbons. I got pretty excited about the types of new interfaces that users can create without any code. I think you will find it is easier than you might think. This paper is the...

The past few days I have been working on an update to our Access 2000 Expense Report database. I'm interested if anyone has any feedback on how I can improve the design of the template. Let me give you a quick run through of the tables, forms, and...

I'm interested in what limitations you have experienced in trying to make your Access application look more modern. What are the limitations of Access forms and reports that keep you from creating applications that look like Web 2.0 apps? Some of the...

One of the most enjoyable design challenges I have had over the last couple of years was redesigning how users can filter inside Access and Excel. The new filter dropdown menu and context menus were lots of fun to explore different designs and think creatively...

Over the past 6 months, I reviewed an overwhelming number of resumes from jobseekers interested in joining my team. After a exhaustive search, we’re excited to have found a great fit for the team – Ryan from M7 Database. During the process of identifying...

Recently a MCS consultant asked the following question on an internal Access Discussion alais: My customer is looking for either a document on 'general best practices when using Access 2003' and/or a document on 'best practices for coding in Access...

I noticed the Access Junkie just posted a few links to KB articles that describe hot fixes for some blocking issues. Here are the highlights (or um, low lights): ADP Perf When you try to run a Microsoft Access project (.adp) in Access 2007, the project...