Mike Wolfe - No Longer Set (Page 14)

Week in Review: November 11, 2023

Highlights include an update to the Access development priorities, a no-code way to highlight the current control, and a talk on classes and event-driven programming.

Commentary

"How Hard Can It Be?" Five of the Most Dangerous Words for Access Developers

Software projects often turn out to be much more complex than initially anticipated. Here's how to avoid getting in over your head.

Announcement

Upcoming Presentation: Streamline Your Import/Export Spec Workflow with VBA Classes

Join me online on Wednesday, December 6, for my presentation "Streamline Your Import/Export Spec Workflow with VBA Classes" to the Access Europe user group.

Intermediate

Documenting the Import-Export Specification System Tables

Documentation of the meaning and typical values that get saved to the Import-Export specification system tables: MSysIMEXSpecs and MSysIMEXColumns.

Commentary

Career Advice from Patrick McKenzie

Patrick McKenzie is the best writer on the topics of software and business that you've never heard of.

Commentary

Everything in Life is a Tradeoff

There will never be a shortage of people willing to spend other people's money.

twinBASIC Weekly Update

twinBASIC Update: November 5, 2023

Highlights include a major overhaul of twinBASIC's internals, support for "destructuring assignment", and a VBA UserForm to tB converter.

Week in Review

Week in Review: November 4, 2023

Highlights include Karl's Access News update, Access learning resources, SQL Server with geography data, and the coming death of VBScript.

Basic

Creating and Editing Import Specifications via the Wizard

For one-off text file data imports, it's hard to beat the simplicity of Microsoft Access's built-in wizard.

Code Library

UserPressed(): Break Out of a Long-Running Loop in VBA with the Escape Key

This API call captures keyboard input from the user without relying on any of the form keyboard events.

Announcement

Microsoft Announces the Death of VBScript

As seems to be their new modus operandi, Microsoft has quietly rolled a hand grenade into the VBA development world with very little fanfare.

Basic

Local vs. Linked Tables in Microsoft Access

An introduction to the differences between local and linked tables in Microsoft Access, including five situations where local tables are the better choice.

Commentary

Documenting Recurring Processes

The two-pronged approach we use to document recurring processes internally.

twinBASIC Weekly Update

twinBASIC Update: October 29, 2023

Highlights include two new methods for tB IDE Add-in development and an upcoming rewrite of the standard library implementation.

Week in Review

Week in Review: October 28, 2023

Highlights include integrating ChatGPT into Access, the new Access Program Manager (Linda Cannon) at Access Lunchtime, and the Access team weighs in on New Outlook.

Code Library

Automating Temporary Data Cleanup in Access with the ClearTempTables() Procedure

The ClearTempTables() procedure is a quick way to empty out temporary tables in your front-end Access files before deploying updates.

Access 101

Access 101: SELECT Query

The SELECT query is the source of a relational database system's true power.

Report Builder

Report Builder: The Reports & Templates Tables

A description of the tables used to store built-in and user-created report templates for use with my Advanced Report Builder.

Access 101

Access 101: Referential Integrity

Referential integrity is the key to ensuring data quality in a relational database. Learn what it is and how to enforce it among your back-end tables.

Report Builder

Report Builder: The Local ReportControls Table

A description of the local table that serves as the foundation for my Advanced Report Builder.

twinBASIC Weekly Update

twinBASIC Update: October 22, 2023

Highlights include experimental vbWatchdog support, a CheckBitness utility from fafalone, and a VB6 OSInfo class ported to twinBASIC.

Week in Review

Week in Review: October 21, 2023

Highlights include updateable cross-tab forms with Pat Hartman, George Hepworth's Searchable Catalog project, and Richard Rost's Decision Tree database.

Report Builder

Advanced Report Builder Form

This is a reference for my Advanced Report Builder form. The form is broken down into eight sections with links to articles explaining each one.

Performance Tips

Reader Question: Is it worth running an Access front-end from a RAM disk?

Is it worth the complication to run an Access front-end file from within a RAM disk? The answer may surprise you. Or it may not. (Am I doing clickbait wrong?)

Report Builder

Advanced Report Builder

Announcing a new cookbook-style series of advanced articles focused on creating a custom report builder in Microsoft Access.