Week in Review: December 28, 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.}

• Access Forever

  • New Outlook – The Situation in December 2024, by Karl Donaubauer: Discusses Microsoft's transition to New Outlook and its impact on Access automation capabilities through 2024-2025.

• Jonathan Halder (Access JumpStart 2.0)

  • SQL for Single Record Matches: Demonstrates how to use SQL GROUP BY and HAVING clauses to match single address records in a database transformation scenario.
  • Access JumpStart – Form Resizing class: Details the functionality of a VBA class for handling form and control resizing in Microsoft Access.
  • CoPilot's creative side – Merry Christmas!: Shares two poems written by GitHub Copilot - one about Christmas and another about Microsoft Access.
  • Copilot helps me analyze the differences in SD OpenAI products: Explains the differences between SDOpenAI API and SDOpenAI Assistant API plugins for Microsoft Office applications.

• Daniel Pineault (DEVelopers HUT)

  • Moving from Microsoft Access to PHP Web Applications, Why?: Comprehensive overview of the advantages of transitioning from Microsoft Access to PHP web applications.
  • Potential MouseWheel Bug in Microsoft 365 Version 2412: Reports a bug where the MouseWheel event's Count value always returns zero in Microsoft 365 Version 2412.
  • Holiday Greetings, Code Warriors and Database Dynamos!: A humorous holiday message reflecting on Access development challenges in 2024.
  • Is Indexing Boolean Fields Worth It? Performance Insights and Best Practices: Analyzes when indexing boolean fields is beneficial versus counterproductive in database design.

• Colin Riddington (Isladogs on Access)

  • AEU34: Custom Ribbons Using Command Bars: Adrian Bell demonstrates techniques for creating custom ribbons using command bars in Microsoft Access, including dynamic button management and integration with external apps.

• Mike Wolfe (NoLongerSet)

  • Throwback Thursday: December 26, 2024: A weekly roundup highlighting past articles about technical debt, including sources, management strategies, and humorous takes on the topic.
  • The Truth About New Outlook: A Guide for IT Decision Makers: A comprehensive analysis of Microsoft's New Outlook migration, highlighting crucial considerations for IT leaders regarding automation dependencies and security support through 2029.

Videos‌

• Access User Group Recordings (YouTube channel)

  • Learn About all the Different Field Types for Tables (55:28): with Mark Edwards
  • Custom Ribbons Using CommandBars (55:58): with Adrian Bell

• Richard Rost (YouTube channel)

  • Find in Text Box (19:07): How to Search for Text in a Long Text Field in Microsoft Access. Build Find First, Find Next Buttons
  • Customize Form Layouts AT RUNTIME? (01:45): Who's Interested in Learning How To Allow Users to Customize Form Layouts AT RUNTIME in Access?
  • Close VBA Windows (11:39): Microsoft Access VBA Editor Loading Slow? Close Your Module Windows!
  • Access Seminar From 2002 (10:04:51): Merry Xmas... It's a RETRO Microsoft Access Seminar From 2002

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 8, 2025: Philipp Stiefel - Developing COM Add-Ins for Microsoft Access
• January 09, 2025: Geoffrey L. Griffith - Creating Add-ins that run in Access and Office — Part II
• January 14, 2025: Roy Kim - Data Ingesting Pipeline from Azure IOT Hub to Azure SQL DB
• February 05, 2025: John Mallinson - Using VBE_Extras Add-In with Access
• February 06, 2025: Adam Waller - Access Version Control
• March 05, 2025; Alexander Denz - Topic title to be confirmed
• March 06, 2025: George Hepworth - Eliminating Magic Numbers in VBA
• April 02, 2025: John Heaser - Source Control for Access & SQL Databases
• April 10-11, 2025: Access DevCon Vienna (speakers TBA)
• May 07, 2025: Colin Riddington - Large Monitor Support and Responsive Forms
• 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

Access Roadmap

No changes were made to the roadmap between the Week in Review last week (2024-12-21) and this week (2024-12-28).

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)