Week in Review: January 20, 2024

Just Published

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

Articles

• Official Access Blog

  • Access Releases 9 Issue Fixes in Version 2312 (Released January 4th, 2024), by Linda Lu Cannon

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

  • The Event Firing Mechanism in Access Objects

• Jonathan Halder (Access JumpStart 2.0)

  • TDD – 035 – The Fast, The Bad and The Ugly
  • TDD – 034 – Null and empty string comparisons
  • TDD – 033 – New Code to Pass the Test, and the Tests save the day!
  • TDD – 032 – Refactoring the tests, and a new failing test for an edge case

• Daniel Pineault (DEVelopers HUT)

  • Find Outlook Appointments

• Colin Riddington (Isladogs on Access)

  • Paint Me Transparent in a Continuous Form
  • Streamline Multiselect Filters in Continuous Forms
  • Get Control Positions & Sizes Using Code
  • Multiselect Filter in a Continuous Form (updated)

• Crystal Long (Ms Access Gurus | Access Access Newsletter)

  • Word Count Fields

• Mike Wolfe (NoLongerSet)

  • Bug Alert: Accidental Double-Clicking of Long-Running Processes
  • Access Day 2024
  • GetCtlAtMouse(): A Reliable Way to Return the Current Control Object Under the Mouse Cursor in Access
  • Ditto: My Newest Favorite Micro-Productivity Tool
  • Microsoft Access: The Only Low-Code/No-Code/High-Code Data Application on the Market

Videos‌

• Access User Group Recordings (YouTube channel)

  • Tools to help you automate Access coding (01:06:38): with FMS founder Luke Chung

• Richard Rost (YouTube channel)

  • List Box Move Item (20:15): How to Move Items Up and Down in a List Box in Microsoft Access. Part 1: Unbound List Box
  • Form Shadow (17:10): Give Your Microsoft Access Forms a Dark Visible Border Shadow
  • Delete Files (19:13): Microsoft Access Clean Up: Delete Temporary Files Automatically with the VBA Kill Command
  • Reset for the New Year (12:46): How Can I Reset My Microsoft Access Database for the New Year? (2024 Update)

• Daniel Pineault (YouTube channel)

  • VBA - Creating Windows Notification Messages (15:39)
  • Running Microsoft Access on a MAC Device (10:31)
  • VBA - Read Text File Into Memory (08:49)

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 30, 2024: Maria Barnes - 2024 Plans for Access
• February 1, 2024: John Colby - What is a Framework and Why Would Access Developers Use One?
• 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
• March 7, 2024: Linda Ewen - Sharing Data with Users Outside Your Local Network (JUST ADDED)
• March 15, 2024: Access Day - one-day in-person Access Conference in Seattle, WA area
• 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 (2024-01-13) and this one (2024-01-20).

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