Week in Review: November 25, 2023

Just Published

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

Articles

• Access Forever

  • Access is finally Large Address Aware, by Karl Donaubauer

• a.p.r. pillai (Learn MS-Access Tips and Tricks)

  • Streamlining Event Procedures RGBColor Wizard

• Jonathan Halder (Halder Consulting)

  • TDD – 005 – Passing a form to our listener part 2
  • TDD – 006 – Mocks and Fakes and Tests, oh my!
  • TDD – 007 – Shaken, not stirred

• Colin Riddington (Isladogs on Access)

  • VBE Option Statements
  • AEU24: Features of MZ-Tools
  • AEU23: Streamline Form Module Code
  • Gradient Background Fill on Forms

• Mike Wolfe (NoLongerSet)

  • Profit Centers vs. Cost Centers
  • 6 Things Most People Don't Know About Microsoft Access
  • What Dwight Eisenhower Can Teach Us About Microsoft Access
  • The vbNullChar Constant in VBA
  • Highlight the Current Control in an Access Form...Without VBA!

Videos‌

• Access User Group Recordings (YouTube channel)

  • 2 free tools: 1)List Access Objects 2)VBA Code Documenter + step-thru VBA to Open Access and Bypass Startup (01:03:32): with Crystal Long and Adrian Bell

• Sean MacKenzie (YouTube channel)

  • Nodes (53:11): ADI Part 5: How to Build Nodes in Microsoft Access

• Richard Rost (YouTube channel)

  • Custom MsgBox Part 1 (25:59): Create a Custom Dynamic MsgBox in Microsoft Access Using VBA. Part 1: Dialog Forms
  • Custom MsgBox Part 2 (16:32): Create a Custom Dynamic MsgBox in Microsoft Access Using VBA. Part 2: OpenArgs
  • Advertising in my Videos? (09:38): What? There's Advertising in my Videos? It's Almost Like I Have Bills to Pay or Something. Oh No!
  • Black Friday / Cyber Monday Special (01:40): Here's my Obligatory Black Friday / Cyber Monday Special
  • Named Arguments (11:27): Using Named Arguments in Microsoft Access VBA for Increased Flexibility and Readability
  • MsgBox Options Part 2 (12:25): Microsoft Access MsgBox Options. Set No as Default. Part 2

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

  • The Search Anything Box (08:39): How to Search Any Field with One Text Box 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 28, 2023: Adrian Bell - VBA Class Basics
• 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
• 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
• 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 (2023-11-18) and this one (2023-11-25).

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

UPDATE [2023-11-26]: Added link to Access User Groups video with Crystal Long and Adrian Bell.