Week in Review: February 17, 2024

Just Published

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

Articles

• Philipp Stiefel (CodeKabinett)

  • Generating MD5, SHA-1, and SHA-512 Hashes in VBA Using the Windows API (updated)

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

  • Streamlining Code Synchronized Forms

• Juan Soto (Access Experts)

  • Datasheet Design Configuration

• Crystal Long (Access Access Newsletter)

  • Make Big Checkboxes any Size and Color you want

• Daniel Pineault (DEVelopers HUT)

  • Hide Or Disable SubForm Until Parent Form Has Data

• Colin Riddington (Isladogs on Access)

  • Freeze Columns in Continuous Forms - Part 2
  • FIXED: Error 3283 when refreshing links using code
  • Freeze Columns in Continuous Forms - Part 1
  • Access News & Events (updated)

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

  • Unicode in Format Property for 'Checkbox'

• Mike Wolfe (NoLongerSet)

  • Hiding Duplicate Values in Reports
  • Sample Data for the "Hiding Duplicate Values" Series
  • Hiding Duplicate Values in Microsoft Access Forms and Reports
  • ChatGPT: Code-Writing Intern, Code-Reading Mentor
  • Unfamiliar Language? 10X Your Productivity by Combining the Old with the New

Videos‌

• Richard Rost (YouTube channel)

  • Default Button (17:12): Default Button: How to Press a Button on a Form by Using the Enter Key in Microsoft Access
  • Table of Contents: Part 1 (21:40): How to Generate a Table of Contents or Index for a Microsoft Access Report
  • Table of Contents: Part 2 (18:01): How to Generate a Table of Contents or Index for a Microsoft Access Report, Part 2
  • Table of Contents: Part 3 (17:39): How to Generate a Table of Contents or Index for a Microsoft Access Report, Part 3
  • IsDev Function (16:07): A Quick Function to Indicate the Developer is Using the ACCDB File in Microsoft Access

• Daniel Pineault (YouTube channel)

  • Microsoft Access - Hide Or Disable SubForm Until Parent Form Has Data (23:29)
  • VBA - Determine the OS Bitness / Is OS 64-bit? (19:55)

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.}

• 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
• March 15, 2024: Access Day - in-person Access conference in Seattle, WA area
• March 26, 2024: Steve Schapel - Unraveling Constraints – A Case Study
• April 3, 2024: Dale Fye - Working with Command Bars and the Access Shortcut Tool
• April 9, 2024: UK Access User Group - April 2024 Conference - in-person Access conference at Imperial College, London (JUST ADDED)
• 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

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Access Roadmap

There were NO CHANGES to the roadmap between the last Week in Review (2024-02-10) and this one (2024-02-17).

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