Week in Review: December 9, 2023
Highlights include new (undocumented) functions for working with DateTimeExtended, an AI Builder for Access, and Jon Halder's TDD journey.
Just Published
This section includes videos, articles, and interesting discussions from the past 7 days.
Articles
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- Working with DateTimeExtended in Access, by Maria Barnes
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a.p.r. pillai (Learn MS-Access Tips and Tricks)
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Juan Soto (Access Experts)
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Jonathan Halder (Access JumpStart 2.0)
- Access Programming – What I do and Why (source control part 2)
- Access Programming – What I do and Why (source control part 3)
- Access Programming – What I do and Why (source control part 4)
- TDD – 008 – Passing the BeforeUpdate event test
- TDD – 009 – Test is passing, now refactor
- TDD – 010 – Design and the next test
- TDD – 011 – Testing variable types and refactoring
- TDD – 012 – Passing Code vs Overthinking
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Daniel Pineault (DEVelopers HUT)
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Colin Riddington (Isladogs on Access)
- Open Queries Directly in SQL View (UPDATED)
- 32 to 64-bit: Variables & Type Statements
- AEU22: Streamline Import Specs with VBA Classes (UPDATED)
- Suggested Improvements to IMEX Data Tasks
- Security Alerts in the Message Bar
- View/Edit IMEX Data Task Specifications (UPDATED)
- Office & VBE Menu Languages Different
- Set Default Printer
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Mike Wolfe (NoLongerSet)
Videos
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Sean MacKenzie (YouTube channel)
- ADI Form Part 6 (01:09:26): ADI Part 6: How to Build an ADI Form in Microsoft Access
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Richard Rost (YouTube channel)
- Access AI Query Builder (06:13): Never Write SQL Again (Unless You Want To). Introducing the Access AI Query Builder
- Access AI Query Builder v1.1 (04:28): Microsoft Access AI Query Builder Version 1.1 Update Released
- Access AI Builder v1.2 (01:42): Microsoft Access AI Builder Version 1.2 Update Released - Now Writes VBA and SQL.
- Custom MsgBox Part 6: Default Button (15:35)
- Custom MsgBox Part 7: Format Properties (20:45)
- Custom MsgBox Part 8: Height and Width (20:08)
- Custom MsgBox Part 9: Custom Icons (23:03)
- Custom MsgBox Part 10: Play Sounds (18:41)
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Daniel Pineault (YouTube channel)
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Pharos Technology [Dr. Richard Hanson] (YouTube channel)
- Universal Search (10:28): Let the User Search Which Fields AND How Many in MS 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.
- 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
- April 18-19, 2024: Access DevCon Vienna - (Online in Microsoft Teams) Agenda to be announced
- 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 (2023-12-02) and this one (2023-12-09).
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.
- Continued Focus on Monthly Issue Fixes: (Monthly Issue Fix Blog) Improved product quality and reliability
- Access becomes Large Address Aware: Removal of key customer error issue
- Dataverse export improvements: Make it easier and faster for admins to migrate their data to Dataverse
- Large monitor support for forms: Improved support of Access on the latest hardware
- Modern Chart Improvements: Expanded support for the most popular chart types and options
- SQL Editor Improvements: Significantly improved SQL query editing experience
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 ControlMAR 2023
: New Modern Web Browser Form Control