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  Welcome To The Access Unlimited Newsletter - Edition 24
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Access Unlimited is an email newsletter that provides free tips, help and information for skilled Microsoft Access users and related software disciplines.

Produced by Garry Robinson from Sydney, Australia.

In this edition,

GETTING ON TOP OF VB PROGRAMMING IN EXCEL
SMART SELECTION COMBO BOXES FOR QUERIES
TIPS-FX HAS A NEW NAME
WIN A COPY OF The Toolbox (BUDDY BONUS)
ALL THE LATEST ARTICLES ETC ON ACCESS 2002
GOOD READING AND USEFUL SITES

~~~ GETTING ON TOP OF VB PROGRAMMING IN EXCEL ~~~

In a recent project, I was required to turn an Excel spreadsheet into the equivalent of a shrink wrapped application. To help with this exercise, I turned to a book as the Excel help really didn't provide me with enough background on how this could be achieved. The book that I selected was "The Definitive Guide to Excel VBA" by Michael Kofler. A couple of weeks later and the Excel spreadsheet now looks like an application because it has the following attributes. It installs like a program, it opens like a program with form based menus, the reports look just like Access Reports and the user is completely sheltered from the complexities of this 5 sheet Excel monster. Really I could not have achieved this without a book like this. So for this editions smart tip, I recommend that you click on the following link to search for this book. Then when you are asked to get into Excel programming in a big way, you probably will have the answer.

http://www.gr-fx.com/booksplus/default.asp?authorid=Michael+Kofler

P.S. It is really interesting that programming forms in Excel VBA is far more like Visual Basic programming than Access programming. If anyone wants to hear more about this topic in future editions, drop me an email

Garry Robinson - Editor of Access Unlimited.

~~~ SMART SELECTION COMBO BOXES FOR QUERIES ~~~

Nirmala Sekhar is back with another of her great articles. This one concentrates on the use of union queries to add an "ALL" statement to combo boxes that drive Access queries. Having done a similar thing in many of my applications, it is great to see it demonstrated so well. Read about it at

http://www.vb123.com.au/toolbox/ 01_access/comboqueries.htm

~~~ TIPS-FX HAS A NEW NAME ~~~

One of the great things about an Ezine is that you do not really have to follow many rules. I mentioned the other day to my wife that the Tips-FX magazine now has 2500 readers and rather than getting the usual "Yeh Yeh Yeh" response that I get when I talk technology, she said I should got a less daggy name for the newsletter. So we came up with "Access Unlimited".

Now this new editorial masterpiece (cough cough) has an alternative home at MSN.

http://communities.msn.com/accessunlimitednewsletter/

Here you can join the newsletter using Microsoft's Passport services which basically means that you can join a truckload of web sites that use MS Passport and only have to use one (secret) account. I guess that should be exciting to some of you. One thing I will promise is that the MSN Access Unlimited community will receive more material than the offline email list because its much easier to mail to the MSN Community than it is to do it offline.

~~~ WIN A COPY OF The Toolbox (BUDDY BONUS) ~~~

To get the ball rolling, anyone who joins the Access Unlimited MSN community before 15^th May will receive a free copy of the popular Toolbox see http://www.vb123.com/Toolbox/

So as you are likely to already be signed up, send your programming buddies along to join and ask them to forward the prize to you when they win. Join at the following location

http://communities.msn.com/accessunlimitednewsletter/

~~~ CREATING YOUR OWN INSTALLATION WIZARD ~~~

Advanced Programmers only

When running the package and deployment wizard, there are three good options for generating an alternative method of installing software to that offered by the Visual Basic Package and Installation Wizard. They are

1. Purchase InstallShield from http://www.installshield.com/
2. Purchase Wise Installation from http://www.wisesolutions.com/
3. Copy and modify the visual basic project Setup1.vbp for minor changes

If you find and open the visual basic project setup1.vdp, you can tinker with the form Setup1.frm a little bit to modify the way the installation wizard works. Search the code behind this form for MoveAppRemovalFiles and add the following code to launch the application immediately after it has been installed. This will avoid the user having to find the program group to run the application. Following is the code to run this modification plus the preceding and subsequent line of code. Remember to copy the visual basic project somewhere else before starting.

So open Setup1.vdp

Modify Setup1.frm and view the code behind the form

Now find the following line of code and add the GR section to the program

Compile the VB project.

Read the notes at the web addresses after code

MoveAppRemovalFiles strGroupName

' Start Added by GR ---------

Dim RunNow As Integer

RunNow = MsgBox("Your application can be found by clicking on" & _
 "the Start Button, Choosing Programs and Option Group " & _

strGroupName & vbCrLf & vbCrLf & "Run the program now", _
  vbYesNo, "Would You Like To Run The Program Now")

If RunNow = vbYes And FileExists(gstrDestDir & gstrAppExe) Then
  SyncShell gstrDestDir & gstrAppExe, INFINITE, , True
End If

' Finished Added by GR ---------

' Next is an existing line of code

ExitSetup Me, gintRET_FINISHEDSUCCESS

Further good reading on this topic …

A simple tutorial on the package and deployment wizard that comes with VB and Office 2000

http://www.vbinformation.com/tut-set.htm

Deployment wizard discussions at Microsoft

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/devprods/vs6/vbasic/vbcon98/vbconcreatingsetupprogram.htm
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/devprods/vs6/vbasic/vbcon98/vbconusingsetupwizardwithsetuptoolkit.htm

~~~ DATA MINING / GRAPHING SOURCE CODE ~~~

If you are interested in technology that shows the drilldown and multi data-source graphing process in Access, why not consider the

"GR-FX Programmers Pack"

which has been upgraded to include not only all the source code for the popular Graf-FX graphing tool plus some new programming libraries called Graf+FX.

http://www.vb123.com/explore

Purchase the software from

http://vb123.com/orders/

~~~ LAST EDITIONS COMPETITION ~~~

What I was interested in was web sites that programmers that read this magazine are using to find programming material on the web. The answers were a little thin on the ground but here Alan Simpson's contribution which I will add to my code hunts.

One of the best VB resources on the web As an example search for access password and you will find a free resource. And it works with 2000 into the bargain ;-)
http://www.planet-source-code.com/xq/ASP/lngWId.1/qx/vb/default.htm

If you can't find what you're looking for at PSC, then this one usually comes up trumps:
http://searchvb.techtarget.com/

and Ed's old favorite search site

http://www.codehound.com/vb

~~~ ALL THE LATEST ARTICLES ETC ON ACCESS 2002 ~~~

Head to http://msdn.microsoft.com/office/xp/access.asp

Including

Programming printer settings
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/techart/odc_acc10_printers.htm

Appending files and other file dialog goodies
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/techart/odc_filedlgobjs.htm

Importing and exporting XML into Access and SQL Server
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/techart/odc_accessxml.htm

_/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/

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GOOD READING AND USEFUL SITES

The new Office XP / 2002 / Office 10 site. Get the facts and wonder…
http://www.microsoft.com/office/xp/fastfacts.htm#top12

Access email groups - maybe some help to someone.
http://dir.groups.yahoo.com/dir/Computers___Internet/Software/Databases/Microsoft_Access

Access All Areas - Background reading on a Access topics
http://www.athree.com/

Using Hotmail with Outlook express.
http://communities.msn.com/EmailQA&naventryid=110

Converting DAO for higher performance on client server/networks
http://www.microsoft.com/accessdev/articles/Ac301.htm

Some free Access learning materials and more
http://www.cse.bris.ac.uk/~ccmjs/access_section.html

Highly technical discussion on making reports in ASP
http://www.15seconds.com/Issue/981216.htm

VB for Palm …
http://www.appforge.com/prod/af_std/index.html

Take A Shortcut In Excel
http://officeupdate.microsoft.com/2000/focus/articles/ExcelKeys.htm

Handling text files from Visual Basic
http://www.xploiter.com/programming/vb/vb5_tutor/vb5j.htm
http://www.vb-world.net/files/openstatement/index2.html

Create a Toolbar for windows like the Microsoft toolbar using VB
http://www.thescarms.com/VBasic/appbar.asp

Opening Shortcut folders using VB
http://www.mvps.org/vbnet/index.html?code/shell/shshortcutcheat.htm

Access Passwords without the mdw file
http://www.planet-source-code.com/xq/ASP/txtCodeId.606/lngWId.1/qx/vb/scripts/ShowCode.htm

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WRAPPING THIS EDITION UP

This month I published the new Access 97 version of Graf-FX. This now allows you to datamine any Access database without setting up linked tables or importing queries into the Graf-FX database. This is the biggest change to this product since I wrote it 6 years ago. Why not download the Access 97 version (it’s packaged in winzip executable format ) from

http://vb123.com/get/graf97.exe

Ed. Garry Robinson

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View our web site as a searchable eBook and have access to all the downloads discussed in the articles and information pages at the popular vb123.com web site.

---> http://www.gr-fx.com/Toolbox/

So thanks for reading our popular newsletter.  Feel free to make comments, copy the email to a friend or maybe even contribute to the next edition.

Garry Robinson - Software Consultant

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Published  2001-03