Access Tips?

[Blue Falcon]

I'm going to start programming with Access. Does anyone have any good tips or tricks that I should know about?

[antonye]

You mean apart from "don't bother" ? :-)

The trouble with Access is that the object model is too different from the other VBA object models and it's a nightmare to switch between something like Word or Excel VBA to Access VBA, whereas it's a very easy switch from Word/Excel VBA to Visual Basic proper.

You shouldn't really be programming in Access anyway - it's a desktop database and really you should be looking for databases to grow as that's what they're designed to do.

Any database in Access will eventually out-grow it and need an upgrade to SQL, at which point you're going to lose all the code in your Access front end.

Get yourself a copy of Visual Basic and learn how to write a real client (front-end) that talks to the database through ADO.

That way when you come to upgrade your database, you simply repoint the datasource from Access to SQL and you don't loose any code and your clients (who use the front end) don't notice the difference.

Sure, use Access to learn how to put databases together, but it really shouldn't be used for "real" programming.

[LagMonster]

Nice point ant....But we use access here in my company and we have over 2000 databases average size of 100MB some are tiny but some are giants. We have converted all the Giants to SQL and we in progress to switch over the rest. They didn't weigh the benefits of SQL, and Frankly I don't think the people who started the company knew about SQL. They did manage though, and I could see using access for a home or small business. I think access is more user freindly for queries and such. Anyways...you can find a lot of help on msdn.microsoft.com

Have fun learning.

[opiate]

Access is good to learn on!

If you want you could pick up a good VB book. Like antonye said, You should use/learn ADO. ADO is very powerfull when connecting to any database that's ODBC/OLE DB compatable. You can do so much more with Visual Basic.

However, normally when I'm building a VB front end on a Access database and the only reasons I do that are because it works with ADO. Once my app is in the final stages I set it up on an Oracle or MS-SQL database platform.

Good Luck pal

[fadel sheer]

I think you should get Microsoft access tutorial CD that will gide you step by step to get to a point that you can do good programs at a glance, and get your commands needed from the online help.
good luck

[fadel sheer]

I think you should get Microsoft access tutorial CD that will gide you step by step to get to a point that you can do good programs at a glance, and get your commands needed from the online help.
good luck

[fadel sheer]

Try this site as help http://support.microsoft.com/highlights/default.asp?pr=acc97&cl=176