Access 2007

[Oaktree]

We have the sticky post regarding the new features in Excel 12, but has anyone heard what changes they're making to Access in the upcoming version of MS Office? If they're increasing Excel's capacity to >1MM rows, it seems they'd have to make some changes to keep Access' viability.

 

[Joe4]

By the way I know that Excel and Access are both Microsoft applications but the actual technology behind some of their features wasn't actually developed by them, they just 'acquired'.

I think that might be connected to the legal mumbo-jumbo you mention.

Can't Bill Gates just toss some money at them? He's got enough of it!

 

[giacomo]

I haven't looked at any of the links posted above yet but I plan on it. Until then I thought I might throw in my wish list:

1. Greater than 2GB limit.

2. count(distinct *) ~ this should have been delivered a long, long time ago

3. MINUS and INTERSECT ~ I'm spoiled Oracle user and really miss these features when I use Access

4. It should be whole lot easier to make an .exe

5. You should be able to output reports as PDF’s so you can email the darn things.

6. And although this falls into jm14's "dumb it down" category. I would like to be able to build a form and have the table be built behind the scenes.

7. I’d also like to be able to build a sub-select in the QBE pane instead of having to switch to SQL view. Although I do prefer SQL… I guess it’s another one of those "dumb it down" features.

8. Colored buttons!!!!

9. A macro recorder… I’d probably never use it but every other Office App has one why not Access, what gives?

10. I was really thinking I was going to make it to 10 but I’m out of ideas

 

[Joe4]

giacomo,

I have a number 10 for you. How about better documentation/help files? Not that it is bad, it just isn't as good as Excel's (especially the VBA help files).

 

[Andrew Fergus]

I had a glance at the linked article about the upcoming changes. Finally it looks like saving reports in the pdf format will be standard - and to think of the hours I have spent on VBA code to get pdf reports working in e-mails.....oh well.

I too would like to see a size limit >2GB and more helpful / intuitive help files.

There is a new feature called a 'multi value' field - I'm struggling to see the benefit of such a field in a relational database. I suppose time will tell.....

I haven't yet got my head around the 'Share Point' services but the linked article stated : "With Office Access 2007, you can link tables to your database from other Office Access databases, Microsoft Office Excel spreadsheets...{snip}" so I don't think there will be an Access~Excel issue.

Given the new GUI I'd expect the ability to design really neat forms - ie feature rich and the ability to customise a form and its contents to the nth degree (e.g. as giacomo mentioned coloured / rounded buttons & corners etc) without having to resort to 'painting' objects onto a form.

Pdf reports aside, I can't yet see the benefits given this will come at a cost of more RAM / processing power etc, but am happy to be convinced otherwise!

Just my 2c
Cheers
Andrew

 

[Joe4]

I haven't yet got my head around the 'Share Point' services but the linked article stated : "With Office Access 2007, you can link tables to your database from other Office Access databases, Microsoft Office Excel spreadsheets...{snip}" so I don't think there will be an Access~Excel issue

What I heard (and haven't been able to confirm yet) is that there isn't any problem linking Access to Excel, it is just that the linked data is no longer updatable.

I also heard that is the case on the most current release of Access. Is anyone using it that can confirm/deny this rumor?

 

[SydneyGeek]

What I heard (and haven't been able to confirm yet) is that there isn't any problem linking Access to Excel, it is just that the linked data is no longer updatable.

I also heard that is the case on the most current release of Access. Is anyone using it that can confirm/deny this rumor?

Yep. As of SP2 in Office XP, you can't update linked Excel sheets. Microsoft lost a patent battle with a smaller developer, and had to remove the functionality. So, if you use versions prior to that, it's still not a problem.

Adding to Andrew's comments on design, I understand that Access 2007 will have WYSIWYG report design. After some of the struggles I had to produce a decent result, that should be a good thing -- if they get it right.

Giacomo makes some good points about relationship types. Other packages out there (FileMaker among them) don't restrict you to equal or outer joins -- you can pick from greater than, less than, not equal...

As for the Help, it's getting better. Compare 2003 with 97. But I reckon the VBA help in Access is pretty good. Maybe I just got used to it. Some really prominent, well thought out, tutorials on relational design would be a good thing, though. The MS Project team have handled that pretty well -- yes, they use a Wizard, but it's easy to get to and you can always park it once you have the basics under your belt.

One pet peeve of mine is the templates. Some of them are pretty useful for what they do, but you go for a dig and think "Why did they do it like that?". Then a client trots out a monster that they cobbled together from a couple of template databases, and you have to unravel the stinking heap.

Increased capacity would be good, as would recordable macros -- second both of those suggestions.

Denis

 

[Joe4]

Thanks for confirming that Denis.

Do you if there are any articles which mention that? I would to have something "official" to give our IT people so they are aware of that when we upgrade. I will look out on the web to see what I can find...

 

[Joe4]

Found this here, though they don't come out and tell you why it no longer works (i.e. lost a patent battle), but I wouldn't expect them to admit that on their site:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/904953/en-us

 

[SydneyGeek]

From Garry Robinson's site:
In the latest service pack for Access 2003 and also in an automatic upgrade for Access 2002 lurks a significant "Gotcha" for those people who happen to manage Excel data (cells) through Access linked tables. The change to Access is simple, before the upgrade you could change Excel data through the linked tables and now you only have a read-only view. Whilst this was always a fairly unstable linked table option, if you used it sparingly, it could do the job. Well, now if your database uses this feature for managing data, you are in a spot of bother. More on this issue in kb 904953 at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/904953/

Now it is more than likely that this software modification is related to the following successful patent claim that is discussed at the following website

http://news.com.com/ also at http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9593_22-5735432.html


Denis