Access JumpStart 2.0 | Blog
A Rapid Development Framework for Microsoft Access
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Simple Active / Inactive Access Combo Box Dropdown List
I was working with a friend yesterday and he was showing me how he was showing a bound dropdown list on a combo box on a bound form. He was using a UNION query and VBA to update the combo box RowSource value each time to include another row in the dropdown if the...
Access VBA isn’t always the quickest thing out there…
Don't get me wrong. Access VBA can perform very well in most situations. There have been a few times where I've needed to improve the speed of some function I was using and Access just took too long. One of those is hashing values for files. There is a hashing...
Troubleshooting an ODBC error in Access
Access Error (3155) ODBC: "Query timeout expired". It happened when trying to insert a new record into a linked table called "order" I'm using ODBC driver 17 in this case and it happened twice. Not sure if the user tried to do it twice or if my code kept going and...
We aren’t good project time estimators
This is one reason why I don't like giving time estimates to customers. You know the drill: Customer: So how long is it going to take you to do X? Me: Uh, when do you want it? Customer: Yesterday. Me: Not that fast... how about on Friday? My decision for Friday is...
Versioning to the rescue
I use an SVN server to store versioning information for all my Access work that I do. A shout out to the OASISsvn Access Add In and TortoiseSVN for Windows which are two pieces of software I use daily in my Access versioning work. How it saved by butt today: I had a...
Understanding Access Events Can Be Tricky
Yesterday, I was talking about the BeforeUpdate form event and BeforeUpdate Access control event as ways I was looking at triggering a validation function and then canceling the event so the update would not occur. A reader wrote in to mention usage of the Change...
Making sure your validation bases are covered
It's easy to get burned when trying to set up custom validations for Access fields and enforcing them while the form is being filled out. I have a form with the following fields (of the type): Vendor Name (string) Is Vendor Active (checkbox) Is On PO form (checkbox)...
VBA conversions – implicit and explicit
Sometimes you can get runtime errors when you are trying to assign the value of a control to some VBA object. For example, consider this statement: TempVars!NewTempVar = Form_orders.order_id What we are trying to do is set the NewTempVar in the TempVars system...
Good candidates for Access projects
Maybe you read my last message (Hammers and nails, Access and…? | Access JumpStart) and thought, "Yeah, Access does sound like a good fit for my business needs." But what would you use it for exactly? If you've never used Access or any relational database software,...
Hammers and nails, Access and…?
It's important to choose the right tool for the right job. What about Microsoft Access? When is it the best or at least a good tool for the job? Or turning around the question, what are the best jobs to use Access for? The first thing to remember is that Access is a...
Use the DoEvents command wisely
If you are using DoEvents in your VBA code to allow form updates or preventing Windows from labeling your Access app as Unresponsive, make sure you consider the potential ramifications. DoEvents not only chimes in to the OS that it's awake, but it also allows any...
User experience and checkbox labels
I had a customer who was confused as to why a checkbox was being checked or unchecked at seemingly random times. In this particular case, the checkbox label was very wide and butted right up to the button to save the data on the form and close it. In Access, when you...
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