Week in Review: November 16, 2024

Just Published

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

Articles

• Jonathan Halder (Access JumpStart 2.0)

  • Why, Jon, Why??? For the love of VBA, Why?????: Explains how Model-View-Controller architecture can be applied to Access applications to separate concerns.
  • Separating business logic, user interface, and data persistence in a real world Access app: Demonstrates separation of concerns using a credit card payoff calculator example.
  • You can split a db, but can you split a form?: Discusses strategies for separating form logic from database management using class abstractions.
  • Measuring Height of controls using the CanGrow Property in Access (Part 1): Explains how the CanGrow property works differently in forms versus reports.
  • Measuring Height of controls using the CanGrow Property in Access (Part 2): Explores solutions for calculating dynamic heights in reports using print preview or Windows APIs.
  • Measuring Height of controls using the CanGrow Property in Access (Part 3): Describes solving report height calculation by iterating over recordsets.

• Daniel Pineault (DEVelopers HUT)

  • Save an Access Chart To Disk: Provides code examples for exporting Access charts to various image formats.

• Colin Riddington (Isladogs on Access)

  • NEW - Monaco SQL Editor (UPDATED): Details Microsoft's new SQL editor for Access 365 with features and known issues.

• Mike Wolfe (NoLongerSet)

  • Throwback Thursday: November 14, 2024: Highlights several past articles about version control in Microsoft Access.

Videos‌

• Access User Group Recordings (YouTube channel)

  • AEU33: An image / photo cataloguer in Access (Chris Arnold) (51:16): with Chris Arnold
  • AEA: Access and SQL Server Relationships + Indexes (01:07:43): with Crystal Long, Kent Gorrell, and Adrian Bell

• Richard Rost (YouTube channel)

  • Employee Training, Part 7 (19:38): Tracking Employee Training and/or Certifications in Microsoft Access, Part 7
  • Employee Training, Part 8 (17:24): Tracking Employee Training and/or Certifications in Microsoft Access, Part 8
  • Unsplit a Database (18:08): How to Unsplit a Database and Merge Tables in Microsoft Access for Solo Use
  • Tab to Form Footer (16:53): Navigate to Form Footer with Keyboard Only in Microsoft Access Forms With and Without VBA

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 20 (9:30 am - 4:00 pm): In-person UK AUG Autumn 2024 Conference, Oxford University (Steve Girling, Anders Ebro, Mike Wolfe, Peter Bryant)
• November 26, 2024: Juan Soto- How to add tables to your Access database, pitfalls to avoid and tips for optimization
• November 26, 2024: George Young- Using Web APIs in Access
• December 04, 2024: Adrian Bell - Custom Ribbons Using Command Bars
• December 05, 2024: Crystal Long and Geoff Griffith- Creating Add-ins that run in Access and Office
• December 10, 2024: Roy Kim - Data Ingesting Pipeline from Azure IOT Hub to Azure SQL DB
• January 8, 2025: Philipp Stiefel - topic to be confirmed
• February 05, 2025: John Mallinson - Using VBE_Extras Add-In with Access
• March 05, 2025; Alexander Denz - Topic title to be confirmed
• April 02, 2025: John Heaser - Source Control for Access & SQL Databases
• May 15, 2025 @ 9:30 am - 5:00 pm: In-person UKAUG 30th Anniversary Conference 2025, Imperial College London (Armen Stein, other speakers TBA)

Access Roadmap

No changes were made to the roadmap between the Week in Review last week (2024-11-09) and this week (2024-11-16). However, the Development Priorities did get updated this week. See details below.

The roadmap was last updated on October 4, 2024. The development priorities were last updated at the German-language AEK conference on October 20, 2024.

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 Oct '24 – March '25.

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.

1. Continued Focus on Monthly Issue Fixes: (Monthly Issue Fix Blog) Improved product quality and reliability
2. Large monitor support for forms: Improved support of Access on the latest hardware
3. Integrated source control: Simplifying the process of building mission critical Access solutions

Special thanks to Karl Donaubauer for posting the updated priorities at AccessForever.org.

In Development

• SEP 2024: Integrate Monaco framework to improve SQL editor capabilities

Rolling Out

None.

Launched

• AUG 2024: Modern Chart Improvements
• NOV 2023: Making 32-bit Access Large Address Aware (LAA)