Week in Review: November 18, 2023

Just Published

^{This section includes videos, articles, and interesting discussions from the past 7 days.}

Articles

• Official Access Blog

  • Microsoft Access rolls out new Office default theme and font, by Linda Lu Cannon

• Access Forever

  • Combo Box "Auto Expand" May Not Work Correctly in Windows 11, by George Hepworth

• Jonathan Halder (Halder Consulting)

  • TDD – 001 – the beginning
  • TDD – 002 – initial design and first test
  • TDD – 003 – Getting our first test to pass
  • TDD – 004 – Passing a form to our listener part 1
  • Access Programming – What I do and Why (source control)

• Colin Riddington (Isladogs on Access)

  • 32 to 64-bit: Conditional Compilation
  • Manage Label Printing
  • Highlight Search Results
  • Dictation in Access

• Mike Wolfe (NoLongerSet)

  • Access 101: INSERT INTO ("Append") Query
  • Reader Question: Do DAO Objects Need to be Closed?
  • Nullable Types in VBA
  • The Pitfalls of Implicit Boolean Conversion in VBA
  • The Worst Way to Price Software Development Work

Videos‌

• Denver Area Access Users Group (YouTube channel)

  • ChatGPT in Access (01:29:25): with Alexander Denz

• Colin Riddington [Isladogs] (YouTube channel)

  • Highlight Current Control (03:32): NO CODE REQUIRED!
  • Using Dictation in Access (05:22)

• Richard Rost (YouTube channel)

  • MsgBox Options (18:41): Set No as Default. Safely Prevent Data Deletion
  • Force Change Password: Part 1 (14:05): Microsoft Access Security: Force Periodic Password Changes
  • Force Change Password: Part 2 (16:04): Microsoft Access Security: Force Periodic Password Changes
  • Force Change Password: Part 3 (14:19): Microsoft Access Security: Force Periodic Password Changes
  • The End of VBScript (14:22): No Panic Needed for Microsoft Access VBA Users

• Daniel Pineault (YouTube channel)

  • Simplified Record Creation and Modification Tracking (12:35)
  • Identify Who Is Logged Into Your Database (25:33)
  • Web Development - Overview - Teaser (36:16)

• Pharos Technology [Dr. Richard Hanson] (YouTube channel)

  • The Multi-Field Search (09:17): How to Build a Multi-Field Search in Microsoft Access

New to Me

^{This section includes content I discovered this week that has been around for awhile.}

Nothing new this week.

Upcoming Access User Group Events

^{NOTE: Only English-language user group meetings with scheduled guest speakers or topics are listed.  For a complete list of upcoming events, visit the Access User Group event calendar.}

• November 22-23, 2023: (IN-PERSON!) UK Access User Group Conference (at the offices of Gordon Associates in Cheltenham)
• November 28, 2023: Adrian Bell - VBA Class Basics (JUST ADDED)
• December 6, 2023: Mike Wolfe - Streamline Your Import/Export Spec Workflow with VBA Classes
• December 7, 2023: Crystal Long - Modify Word Document Properties with Access (JUST ADDED)
• January 3, 2024: Ramachandran (A.P.R.) Pillai - Streamlining the Form Module Code in the standalone Class Module
• January 4, 2024: Kent Gorrell - The Power of Sub classes in Access VBA (JUST ADDED)
• February 7, 2024: Carlos Quintero - Features of MZ-Tools to make you more productive with VBA
• March 6, 2024: Thomas Möller - Better Access Charts in the new Edge Browser Control
• April 3, 2024: Dale Fye - Working with Command Bars and the Access Shortcut Tool
• May 1, 2024: Colin Riddington - View & Edit Import/Export (IMEX) Data Task Specifications

‌

Access Roadmap

There were NO CHANGES to the roadmap between the last Week in Review (2023-11-11) and this one (2023-11-18).

The development priorities were last updated at the German-language AEK conference on October 14, 2023.

Listed below is a snapshot of the official Access Roadmap.

"In Development", "Rolling Out", and "Launched" are Microsoft terms that I pulled straight from the public roadmap.

"Development Priorities" do not appear on the Access Roadmap.  Instead, they get updated from time to time in official Access blog posts or Access engineering team presentations.  I'll include a link to the source of the current development priorities as they get updated.

Development Priorities

The items listed below reflect Microsoft's order of priority and were published in the following article, Microsoft's Plans for Access in the Next 6 Months.

The items are listed in priority order according to Principal Engineering Manager Dale Rector.  The "Expected Benefit" of each feature is shown in italics after the description of the feature itself.

New priorities added since the previous set of priorities are shown in bold below.  Dropped priorities are struck through.

1. Continued Focus on Monthly Issue Fixes: (Monthly Issue Fix Blog) Improved product quality and reliability
2. Access becomes Large Address Aware: Removal of key customer error issue
3. Dataverse export improvements: Make it easier and faster for admins to migrate their data to Dataverse
4. Large monitor support for forms: Improved support of Access on the latest hardware
5. Modern Chart Improvements: Expanded support for the most popular chart types and options
6. SQL Editor Improvements: Significantly improved SQL query editing experience
7. Inconsistent Database Error Fix

Special thanks to Karl Donaubauer for posting the updated priorities at AccessForever.org.

In Development

• NOV 2023: Making 32-bit Access Large Address Aware (LAA)

Rolling Out

None.

Launched

• APR 2023: Modern Web Browser Control
• MAR 2023: New Modern Web Browser Form Control