Week in Review

Week in Review: May 30, 2026

Highlights include color-coded holidays in the Better Date Picker, a deep dive into the new zooming feature, and tools for increasingly complex AI-assisted Access development.

Mike Wolfe

• 5 min read
Week in Review: May 30, 2026

[NOTE: This week's week-in-review article was scheduled the night of Thursday, May 28. New content released on Friday or Saturday will appear in next week's article.]

Just Published

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

Articles

Article descriptions generated by Claude-Sonnet-4.5.

  • Colin Riddington (Isladogs on Access)
    • Add Holidays/Events to the Better Date Picker: Version 1.77 of the Better Date Picker adds the ability to mark public holidays and custom events on the calendar with color-coded backgrounds and tooltips stored in a USysCalendar table.
    • AEU53: UI Tips/Tricks and New Access Features: This Access Europe meeting on July 1, 2026 will cover UI enhancements including personalized popup forms, theme-aware forms, Fluent UI message boxes, and upcoming Access features like form zooming, cascading comboboxes, and customizable rounded corners.
    • AEU55: Working with the Windows API: John Mallinson's September 2, 2026 Access Europe presentation will teach you how to parse Windows API declarations from C++ to VBA by understanding library references, aliases, parameter types, and ANSI vs. Unicode variants.
  • Mike Wolfe (NoLongerSet)
    • Throwback Thursday: May 28, 2026: This retrospective explores techniques for incorporating emoji and visual glyphs into Access applications, including inserting emojis in forms, datasheets, and message boxes using Unicode characters and Windows API calls.
    • twinBASIC Update: May 26, 2026: This week's twinBASIC update highlights the launch of a redesigned twinbasic.com website, major documentation improvements including a 1,658-page PDF reference and offline HTML version, and discussions on vectored exception handling and VB6-to-64-bit migration.

Videos

GitHub Projects

Changelog summary generated by Claude Opus 4.7.

MCP-Access

Four releases this week moved MCP-Access from 62 to 65 tools and tightened a long list of rough edges.

Monday's v0.7.35 led with a preventive bug sweep — twenty-plus fixes across critical, medium, and hardening tiers, none of them prompted by a reported regression. Same day, v0.7.36 added the new capabilities: full-text search across Text/Memo fields in every local table (access_search_data), an object cloner that preserves binary sections and VBA (access_clone_object), and tab-order management (access_manage_tab_order). The next morning's v0.7.37 was an urgent hotfix — a schema-widening line in v0.7.36 had caused strict MCP clients like Claude Code to expose zero tools despite a healthy-looking connection.

Thursday's v0.7.38 closed the week with form-building DX polish, fixing three silent traps that had been quietly costing five-to-fifteen minutes each on first encounter.

New to Me

This section includes content I discovered this week that has been around for a while.

  • 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.

  • [June 3, 2026] Kevin Bell: SQL Server Tips and Tricks for Access Developers
  • [June 9, 2026] Juan Soto: Use AI to build complex features in Access
  • [July 1, 2026] Colin Riddington: UI Tips/Tricks and New Access Features (JUST ADDED)
  • [August 5, 2026] Marcus Dieterle: Use the Edge browser control to extend Access
  • [September 2, 2026] John Mallinson: Working with the Windows API
  • [October 7, 2026] Peter Bryant / Andrew Richards: GraphAuthenticator – the ‘New’ Outlook problem solved and a world of possibilities to explore

Access Roadmap

There were no changes made to the roadmap between the Week in Review last week (2026-05-23) and this week (2026-05-30).

The roadmap was last updated May 11, 2026.

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. Dates listed are "rollout start" dates.

In Development

  • AUG 2026: Cascading combo and list boxes with LinkMasterFields/LinkChildFields: Combo boxes and list boxes now support LinkMasterFields/LinkChildFields properties, enabling cascading dropdowns (e.g., Country filters City) without writing VBA code.
  • JUL 2026: Rounded corners on Access form controls: We’re making it easier to give your Access apps a polished, up-to-date feel. With the new CornerRadius property, you can add rounded corners to form controls—bringing a softer, more modern look to your designs.
  • JUN 2026: Modernize Access Forms and Reports to work well on Large Format Monitors: Remove the 22-inch size limit and modernize Access forms and reports [to] work well on large format monitors and provide responsive behavior for different form factors.
  • JUN 2026: Zooming for Continuous Forms and Multiple-Items Forms: Access extends zoom capabilities to continuous forms and pop-up forms, building on zoom support already available in tables and queries. Adjust magnification from 10 percent to 500 percent using the slider in the lower-right corner or controls on the ribbon. Keyboard shortcuts are also available, making it easy to quickly change your view and focus on the details that matter most.
  • MAY 2026: Enable zoom magnification to Microsoft Access for Forms, Tables, QUeries: Access will add magnification slider (10% to 500%) in lower right of the application, similar to the feature in Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. It will also be keyboard accessible and available on the ribbon in Access forms, tables, and queries.

Rolling Out

None listed.

Launched

None listed.

Upcoming End-of-Life Dates

Here are the key end-of-life dates Access developers should track:

2024

2025

2026

2027

2029

  • [JAN 09] Windows Server 2019
  • [OCT 09] Access 2024 | Outlook 2024
  • [OCT 09 (or later)] Classic Outlook
    • See "Edit 8/12/2024" at top of this article for official clarification that "both perpetual and subscription [i.e., MS 365] versions of Outlook will be supported until 2029"
    • Support for Classic Outlook is guaranteed at least through 9 Oct 2029; it may be extended beyond this date

2030

2031

2033

2034

Ongoing

Date TBD

Never miss an article.

Sign up to receive a Sunday morning email with links and recaps of the seven articles published that week.
(I'll never sell your email. Unsubscribe any time.)


All original code samples by Mike Wolfe are licensed under CC BY 4.0