Week in Review: November 30, 2024

Just Published

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

Articles

^{*Article descriptions generated by Claude-3.5-Sonnet.}

• Juan Soto (Access Experts)

  • Thoughts on Microsoft Ignite 2024: The Year of AI: A recap of Microsoft Ignite 2024 focused on AI and CoPilot innovations, with plans for an AI Showcase in Summer 2025.

• Crystal Long (Access Access Newsletter)

  • Monaco SQL Editor for Access: An overview of the new Monaco SQL Editor for Microsoft Access, including its features, advantages, disadvantages and how to enable/disable it.

• Jonathan Halder (Access JumpStart 2.0)

  • Using a class as the main application: A demonstration of separating business logic from user interface by using a main application class structure for a Debt Snowball application.
  • Lazy loading of objects in VBA: A technique for checking and initializing object variables in VBA forms to prevent errors when the VBA environment resets.
  • How about a good VBA coding practices bootcamp?: A proposal for a bootcamp focused on clean VBA coding practices based on Uncle Bob's principles.

• Daniel Pineault (DEVelopers HUT)

  • Add a Term to a String Every Nth Character: VBA functions to insert a specified term at regular intervals within a string, with an example of adding spaces every two characters.
  • Working With Excel Column Letter and Number in VBA: Two VBA functions for converting between Excel column letters and numbers, enabling seamless transition between alphabetic and numeric column references.
  • Working With Excel Area Selection In VBA: A collection of VBA functions to determine the boundaries of selected areas and active cells in Excel worksheets.
  • How to Determine The Last Used Column in a Row in Excel: A VBA function that finds the last used column in a specified row, properly handling merged cells.
  • Using VBA to Identify File Types Using Their File Signatures: A comprehensive VBA solution for identifying file types by reading their binary signatures, supporting over 60 different file formats.
  • Let's Improve The New Microsoft Access Monaco SQL Editor: A call to action for users to support specific feature requests for improving the Monaco SQL Editor in Microsoft Access through the Feedback Portal.

• Colin Riddington (Isladogs on Access)

  • NEW - Monaco SQL Editor (UPDATED): A comprehensive overview of the new Monaco SQL Editor in Access 365, including its features, known issues, and limitations, with regular updates on bug fixes and improvements through November 2024.
  • Modern Charts Improvements 2: Updated Features: Details the latest improvements to Access Modern Charts including the new Pareto chart type, enhanced sorting capabilities, improved gridlines, and planned future developments.

• Mike Wolfe (NoLongerSet)

  • Throwback Thursday: November 28, 2024: A curated collection of articles focusing on transforming from a developer to a high-value consultant through key mindset shifts.
  • Auto-Closing Access Applications: A recap of Steve Owen's presentation on implementing scheduled automatic shutdown of Access applications for maintenance windows in multi-user environments.
  • Modern Access Interfaces: Form Resizing Solutions with Greg Regan: A detailed summary of Greg Regan's presentation on handling Access form resizing across different screen resolutions, including technical approaches and implementation challenges.

Videos‌

• Access User Group Recordings (YouTube channel)

  • Migration Planning - Access to SQL Server (38:26): with Kent Gorrell

• Richard Rost (YouTube channel)

  • Optional Date Parameter (14:12): How to Add Optional Date Parameters in Microsoft Access VBA that Default to Today's Date
  • CMD in Any Folder (03:43): How to Instantly Open a CMD Command Prompt in Any Folder Using This Windows File Explorer Trick
  • Download Access for Free? (18:41): Download Microsoft Access for Free? Don't Fall for the Illegal Scams!

• Daniel Pineault (YouTube channel)

  • Select Combo Box Value (16:34): How To Select A Microsoft Access Combo Box Value Using VBA
  • Improve Monaco SQL Editor (07:43): Let Us Improve The New Microsoft Access Monaco SQL Editor Together

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.}

• December 04, 2024: Adrian Bell - Custom Ribbons Using Command Bars
• December 05, 2024: Crystal Long and Geoffrey L. 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
• December 19/20, 2024: Kent Gorrell, Crystal Long, Adrian Bell- Data Type Mapping Access to SQL Server
• January 02, 2025: George Hepworth - Eliminating Magic Numbers in VBA (JUST ADDED)
• January 8, 2025: Philipp Stiefel - Developing COM Add-Ins for Microsoft Access
• February 05, 2025: John Mallinson - Using VBE_Extras Add-In with Access
• February 06, 2025: Adam Waller - Access Version Control (JUST ADDED)
• March 05, 2025; Alexander Denz - Topic title to be confirmed
• April 02, 2025: John Heaser - Source Control for Access & SQL Databases
• May 07, 2025: Colin Riddington - Large Monitor Support and Responsive Forms (JUST ADDED)
• May 15, 2025 @ 9:30 am - 5:00 pm: In-person UKAUG 30th Anniversary Conference 2025, Imperial College London (Armen Stein, other speakers TBA)
• June 04, 2025: Anders Ebro - Using Class Modules (JUST ADDED)

Access Roadmap

No changes were made to the roadmap between the Week in Review last week (2024-11-23) and this week (2024-11-30).

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)