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What's New in Access 2002 and 2003?
Access 2002 and 2003 sport a number of new features, all worth taking a look at. Although Microsoft targeted the majority of the new features at client/server and Web integration, there are many other useful enhancements in the product. This section provides an overview of the new features. I cover each feature in more detail in the appropriate chapter of this book.
What's New with Forms
You'll find several new features available for Access forms. The following is an overview of these features. Chapter 5 and Chapter 9 cover these features in detail.Three new events make forms easier to work with. They include the form-level and control-level OnUndo events, and the OnDirty event. The form-level OnUndo event occurs when a user undoes all edits on a form. Like its form-level counterpart, the control-level OnUndo event occurs when a user undoes changes to an individual control. Finally, controls now have OnDirty events. This means that you can react to a control being dirty, just as you can react to a form being dirty.In addition to all the new events available for forms, one new property and one new method are included in Access 2002 and 2003. The new property is the Movable property. It is available for both forms and controls. You can use it to designate whether the form or control is movable. The new method is the Move method. It enables you to programmatically move a form.If you've worked with versions of Access prior to Access 2003, you've probably found it frustrating that the Combo Box and List Box wizards do not provide you with the ability to set a sort order. This meant that one of the first things most people do after running either wizard is to modify the RowSource property and set the sort order. The Access 2003 Combo Box and List Box wizards enable you to designate up to four fields as the sort order for the combo box and list box data. This saves you the extra steps involved when working with previous versions of Access.Many times the AutoCorrect feature is not appropriate for the data contained in a database. With Access 2003, you have more control over the behavior of the AutoCorrect feature. This makes it a more robust and useful tool when working with table data. For example, using the AutoCorrect Options button, you can easily undo a correction, or turn AutoCorrect options on and off.Another new feature in Access 2003 involves Windows XP theme support. By default, Access applies the operating system theme to your Access forms. Access 2003 provides a feature that enables you to prevent forms from inheriting themes from the operating system.Microsoft introduced one of my favorite new features in Access 2003. This new group of features, referred to as the form and report design rules, provide error checking in forms and reports. When activated, these features point out problems with unassociated labels and controls, new unassociated labels, keyboard shortcut errors (such as two controls with the same keyboard shortcut), and invalid control properties.Finally, Microsoft dramatically improved the design-time manipulation of subforms in Access 2002 and 2003. Scrolling through a subform in Design view is much less clumsy in Access 2002 and 2003. Most importantly, you can right-click a subform control and select View, Subform in Own Window. This much-needed command opens the subform in Design view in its own window.
What's New with Reports
Just as there are several new features available for forms, there are several new features available for reports. I cover these features in detail in Chapter 6 and Chapter 10.Several new properties are available for Access 2002 and 2003 reports. They include Modal, PopUp, BorderStyle, AutoResize, AutoCenter, MinMaxButtons, CloseButton, and ControlBox. These properties all work like their form counterparts, and act to give reports much of the same flexibility as found in forms.Microsoft added two new arguments to the OpenReport method. A WindowMode argument enables the user to control how the report window behaves (for example, modally). An OpenArgs argument and property enable you to easily pass information to a report as it is opened and to retrieve that information from within the report.Just as Microsoft added a Movable property and Move method for forms, the company also added them for reports. These features allow you to designate whether a report is movable, and to easily write code to move the report window.
The Exciting World of Pivot Tables and Pivot Charts
Access 2002 and 2003 enable the user to view any table, query, form, ADP table, ADP view, ADP stored procedure, or ADP function in PivotTable or PivotChart view. Pivot tables and pivot charts enable users to easily perform rather complex data analyses. This means that you can perform many of the data analysis tasks once left to Microsoft Excel directly within Microsoft Access. Pivot tables and pivot charts are available in data access pages and subforms, and you can programmatically react to the events that they raise.
Welcome to the Programmability Enhancements in Access 2002 and 2003
Microsoft added several new programmability enhancements to Access 2002 and 2003. They include the following:
- You can now pass a database password on the Access command line.
- DateCreated and DateModified are properties that are programmatically accessible for all Access objects.
- The Expression Builder is available in the Visual Basic Environment (VBE).
- A new Printer object and a Printers collection enable you to easily and programmatically interact with printers.
- AddItem and RemoveItems methods are finally available for list boxes and combo boxes.
- CompactRepair and ConvertAccessProject methods were added.
- A BrokenReference property enables you to easily detect whether any of your references are broken.
- Saving and compilation of code has been streamlined, improving performance when developing large applications.
As you can see, several of these features improve what a developer can do at runtime. Others enhance or improve the performance of the development environment. All help you to get your job done more efficiently and effectively. I cover each feature in additional detail in the appropriate chapters of this book.
Access 2002 and 2003 and XML
Microsoft added a significant amount of XML support in Access 2002 and 2003. Using Microsoft Access, you can easily export both data and schema to XML and you can import from XML, either programmatically or via the user interface. Access exports data and schema as a snapshot of the persisted table or query. It exports schema in the W3C XSD standard. Access bases the presentation, or the format for the output, on an XSL document that generates HTML 4.0. The XSL presentation document and the XML data document are bound with a file that executes on the user machine.New to Access 2003 is the capability to specify a transformation file when you import XML data or export Access data to XML. You can transform XML data as you import it. This occurs before Access creates the new table, or imports the data into an existing table. When you export data to XML, you can opt to export a presentation XSL file. Access bases the generated XSL file on the presentation information found in the Access form, report, or datasheet that you are exporting.This text briefly covers XML support in Access 2002 and 2003. Alison Balter's Mastering Access 11 Client/Server Development covers additional details of working with XML.
What's New with ADP Projects
The SQL Server 2000 Desktop Engine replaces what was formerly known as the Microsoft Database Engine (MSDE). This robust desktop engine offers the same features that Microsoft introduced with SQL Server 2000. Several new features are available in the SQL Server 2000 Desktop Engine:
- The capability to create custom functions
- Extended property support (for example, lookup relationships, validation text, subdatasheets, and so on)
- Updatable views
- Support for copy database and transfer database
What's New with Data Access Pages
Data access pages in Access 2000 were limited and somewhat difficult to work with. Microsoft greatly improved them in Access 2002 and 2003. For example, the Data Access Page Designer in Access 2002 and 2003 supports multiple levels of undo and redo. The Designer also enables you to select and manipulate multiple objects with either the mouse or the keyboard. Microsoft included many new sizing and drag-and-drop options in the new and improved Designer. The Designer supports right-click options that you would expect, and the Properties window is now limited to properties applicable to the selected object(s). In a nutshell, the Access 2002 and 2003 designers are much more like their form counterparts, rather than like neglected stepchildren.In Access 2000, banded data access pages were very limited. In Access 2002 and 2003, banded data access pages are updatable. Many new properties are available at the band level. They include AllowAdditions, AllowDeletions, and AllowEdits. A new Autosum feature facilitates the process of creating aggregate calculations.In addition to the standard data access page layouts, Access 2002 and 2003 offer Tabular, PivotChart, and Spreadsheet options. This enables you to easily customize the look and feel of your data access pages to your needs.Finally, Access 2002 and 2003 data access pages are much easier to deploy than their Access 2000 predecessors. A page-level script notifies users who do not have a compatible browser. Relative paths (rather than absolute paths) can be set to Access databases, and Office Data Connections (ODCs) and Universal Data Links (UDLs) enable you to centralize database connection information. To top it off, because Microsoft programmatically exposes the Link property of the page, you can easily programmatically manipulate the page at runtime.In summary, data access pages in Access 2002 and 2003 have the functionality that you would expect from a "form-designer." They are very easy to work with and include a very rich set of features. Alison Balter's Mastering Access 11 Client/Server Development covers data access pages in detail.
Other New Features Found in Access 2002 and 2003
As if everything mentioned thus far is not enough, well, there's more. Other new features in Access 2002 and 2003 include increased robustness, conversion error logging, worldwide access, accessibility features, and speech recognition.Two main pieces of functionality improve the robustness of Access 2002 and 2003. The first is a much-improved compact and repair utility; the second is a better search mechanism and error resolution process for broken references. To help with the conversion of Access 2000 applications to Access 2002 and 2003, Access 2002 and 2003 provide a table of information about problems that you might encounter during the conversion process.One of my favorite new features introduced with Access 2003 is the capability to view an object's dependencies. In other words, you can view all the objects that depend on another object. For example, before deleting a query, you can determine what forms, reports, and other queries depend on the query that you want to delete.Another feature new to Access 2003 is the capability to import, export, and link to SharePoint Team Services lists. You can also import, export, and link to Access data from SharePoint Team Services. These features combine to greatly improve the integration between Access and SharePoint Team Services.Microsoft added a new safety net to Access 2003. While working in Access, you can back up a database or project before you make changes to it. You can store the backup in the default backup location, or in the current folder. Restoring a database simply involves renaming it and then opening it in Access.Another long overdue feature that Microsoft added to Access 2003 is the capability to make a local copy of the structure and/or the data of a linked table. This makes the process of working with linked tables more seamless.A basic, but much welcomed feature in Access 2003 is the capability to change the font and font size in the SQL and query design views of both Access queries, and SQL Server queries that you manipulate via an Access project. This enables you to work more comfortably with the queries, views, stored procedures, and functions required by your applications.Access 2002 and 2003 add many features that improve their ability to compete in the international market. These features include the capability to
- Display multilingual text in tables, forms, and reports
- Select language-specific spell-checking options
- Switch reading direction
In terms of accessibility, Access 2002 and 2003 add several keyboard shortcuts, as well as additional zoom powers. Finally, new speech options enable the user to dictate text and navigate menus using speech and voice commands!
