Week in Review: May 18, 2024

Just Published

^{This section includes videos, articles, and (occasionally) open-source project updates from the past 7 days.}

Articles

• Official Access Blog

  • Access Releases 7 Issue Fixes in Version 2404 (Released April 27th, 2024), by Linda Lu Cannon

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

  • Classes For All Data Entry Editing Forms

• Crystal Long (Access Access Newsletter)

  • Visualize Access Relationships with Words

• Alessandro Grimaldi

  • Launch Announcement for the Access Italy User Group

• Jonathan Halder (Access JumpStart 2.0)

  • Access and ODBC: a quick overview
  • Getting back on the horse, and form layout label auto configure issue

• Daniel Pineault (DEVelopers HUT)

  • How Popular Is Microsoft Access, Really?!
  • A VBA Procedure To Open A File In Windows Notepad
  • Appending A String To An Open Instance Of NotePad
  • How-to Create Linked Tables Via VBA

• Colin Riddington (Isladogs on Access)

  • Extended File Properties (updated)
  • Forcibly Shutdown Access (updated)

• Mike Wolfe (NoLongerSet)

  • Bug Alert: Scroll Wheel Causes Annoying Ding
  • How Many People Use Microsoft Access?
  • Sun, Sand, and Access: The 2024 Developer Conference in Valencia, Spain
  • Hiding Global Data in VBA

Videos‌

• Philipp Stiefel (YouTube channel)

  • WinAPI: Terminate Process (21:54): Windows API in VBA – Terminate Process – Workaround for Access Hanging on Close

• George Hepworth (YouTube channel)

  • Migrating Foreign Key Indexes with SSMA, Part 1 (06:49): MS Access : Identify “hidden” indexes on fields with Foreign Key constraints, Part 1
  • Migrating Foreign Key Indexes with SSMA, Part 2 (12:42): MS Access : Migrating “hidden” indexes on fields with Foreign Key constraints, Part 2

• Sean MacKenzie (YouTube channel)

  • Array Sum (15:08): How to Sum an Array in VBA

• Richard Rost (YouTube channel)

  • Quick Queries #17 (28:14): Microsoft Access Quick Queries #17: Avoid Beginner Mistakes, Align Forms, Chart Tips, and More
  • Account Statements, Part 1 (17:04): Create Account Statements for Microsoft Access Check Register with Separate Credit & Debit Sections
  • Account Statements, Part 2 (17:07): Create Account Statements for Microsoft Access Check Register with Separate Credit & Debit, Part 2
  • Account Statements, Part 3 (20:33): Create Account Statements for Microsoft Access Check Register with Separate Credit & Debit, Part 3
  • Database Documenter (14:11): How to Use the Database Documenter in Microsoft Access to Discover Hidden Object Dependencies

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.}

• May 21, 2024: Juan Soto- Selling Access with SQL Server Jobs
• May 28, 2024: George Young- Using Web APIs in Access
• June 05, 2024: Colin Riddington - View & Edit Import/Export (IMEX) Data Task Specifications
• June 06, 2024: Ben Sacherich - Trouble-Shooting Access Applications  
• July 03, 2024: Olaf Nöhring - Getting Attention with style: An Improved, Enhanced Message Box / André Minhorst - Enhancing Access Forms
• July 04, 2024: John Colby - What is a Framework and Why Would Access Developers Use One?  
• August 7, 2024: Peter Poppe - Working with Treeviews
• August 27, 2024: Maria Barnes - Working with Microsoft Graph API from VBA
• September 04, 2024: Aleksander Wojtasz - Follow-up session on Interactive Gantt charts
• October 02, 2024: Alessandro Grimaldi - Animation with Style in Access
• November 06, 2024: Chris Arnold - Tips and Tricks for Continuous Forms
• December 04, 2024: Adrian Bell - topic to be confirmed
• January 8, 2025: Philipp Stiefel - topic to be confirmed

Access Roadmap

There were no changes made to the roadmap between the last Week in Review (2024-05-11) and this one (2024-05-18).

The roadmap was last updated the week of May 11, 2024.  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

• AUG 2024: Modern Chart Improvements
• SEP 2024: Integrate Monaco framework to improve SQL editor capabilities

Rolling Out

None.

Launched

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