Re: Microsoft Cleanliness
- From: "David W. Fenton" <XXXusenet@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 08 Dec 2007 19:24:36 GMT
"Albert D. Kallal" <PleaseNOOOsPAMmkallal@xxxxxxx> wrote in
wCu6j.7723$iU.6072@pd7urf2no:">news:wCu6j.7723$iU.6072@pd7urf2no:
"Salad" <oil@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:13liot3nn259pa8@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I guess I've been working with A97 too long. That program seemed
cleaner than A2003.
I guess this is a situation of not willing to learn anything new?
Stuck in a rut are we?
Not at all -- I use A2K/A2K3 and A97 about 50/50, and I vastly
prefer coding in A97. To me, the VBE (and everything it carried into
Access from the unrelated programs that have different purposes) was
a huge mistake. And it still annoys me a lot, every single day.
I've been programming regularly in A2K since 2000, so it's not lack
of familiarity.
Up pops a dropdown of tables and queries and then the field list.
Of course, the dropdown has only 1 column. To make it more
difficult, MS preceeds each table with the word TABLE and each
query with "QUERY". As if I care. Make Table or Query a second
column. I guess MS programmers have never heard a dropdown can
have more than one column.
I suppose you could use two columns,
How exactly does one alter the Access wizards to use two columns?
Or did you just not read what was written?
then on the other hand it would
actually use up more room. Funny, you stand here and talk about
not having enough room for some displays, and are now proposing
and design here that takes up more room? Which way do exactly what
this to go?
Funny how you criticize someone for something that Access did by
telling them they could change how Access works.
Open up 2 or more modules. Click on Window. Your current window
is clean but they have to add the database name and window name
for any other open windows. Why? Who cares? Why does more
garbage make something better, MS?
Once again you've obviously not used a computer with extra memory
or processing.
I'm sure he has. I have. And it's not helpful.
Of course people like you with limited vision would never have
two or even perhaps three copies of MS access open at the same
time (too much for your brain?)?
I often program with 2 and 3 copies of Access open. Even A97, as a
matter of fact. If I'm using A2K or later, it's much worse, as each
instance takes up two TaskBar buttons (one for the database window
and one for the VBE). Since there's no way to extend the TaskBar to
my second monitor, it's pretty problematic (unless I want to
sacrifice vertical space on the monitor with the TaskBar).
Furthermore, you are aware that you can go to tools, and select
windows in taskbar settings. When you do this if you have three
forms open in design mode, then you see 3 entries in the task bar.
So, it makes a LOT of sense to have the name of the application
added to the window.
I think you again misinterpreted what he was writing about. I
thought he meant all the extra garbage in the VBE, with object
browser and properties and all that.
But even if he did mean what you are talking about, what's the deal
with MS making a change that requires work by the user to get to a
usable state? The whole "single-document interface" move with Office
2000 was a vast mistake, and the Windows XP TaskBar shows why --
they had to add a feature to overcome that mistake, the application
window grouping buttons, with the "dropup" that lists the different
windows.
I always turn off the SDI in A2K and later. I really have no
understanding of why they thought it was a good idea to implement
that, except, perhaps, to make their apps more like Web browsers. Of
course, by the time Office 2K was released, the Mozilla project was
already implementing the earliest phaseso of tabbed browsing, which
overcame what was a *defect* in web browsers up to that point, that
each browser document had to open a new window.
By the way, in case you missed some bus for learning more about
office, word, and excel were also changed as a result of this
interface. Most people prefer having extra entries in the task
bar,
Most people? How do you know? All of my clients *hate* the extra
windows, because they can't find anything. And Windows XP
implemented a "fix" for the problem MS created with the SDI.
and not windows as a child.
This is actually a move away from the midi interface.
You mean MDI (multi-document interface). Yet, they traded one
confusing aspect of the MDI (the double row of window controls in
the upper right, with the app min/restore/close buttons directly
above the document min/restore/close buttons) for a whole host of
problems (the first document window is different from all the others
(try this: open Word 2003, now instantiate a new Word window, then
click the document X in the second window, which closes the second
window (so the document X is no different in behavior from the app
window X), now click the document X in first Word window, and the
document closes but the app window stays open; in Word 2000, this
was confusing as well, as there was a document X in the first window
but not in other windows -- that at least allowed you to distinguish
the main window from the subsidiary ones if you knew what to look
for, but by Word 2K3, they'd eliminated that distinction, so you
can't tell what's going to happen just from the appearance of the
window itself; that's one flaw, the other was the problem of
over-proliferating TaskBar buttons so you easily got lost).
All of this is not something many people would notice, but it
confuses the hell out of a lot of people because they can't detect
any pattern at all, and can't tell what they should expect will
happen.
My clients HATE the single-document interface. Many stick with Word
97 just to avoid it.
However, no sweat on
your part, you can turn off the "windows in task bar" if you want.
Fortunately, that's the case in Access. Unfortunately it's not for
Word.
Having the database + module name in the window is a MUST have
today when we can routinely open and run several copies of
ms-access at the same time. The sad part is that you can't even
figure out why such a feature is needed...
Er, you always could do that. But since the modules displayed in the
parent window, there was no danger of having the module appear in a
window that was not clearly associated with an application window
(in A2K and forward, open db1 in Access instance 1, then open db2 in
Access instance 2, then return to db1 and open the VBE -- it will
appear in the TaskBar right next to db2, which is confusing, so the
result is that you have to have the app name in the VBE window's
titlebar. Again, we have a kludge implemented in order to fix a
problem created by something that wasn't needed, i.e., the VBE).
And of course leave out a FileOpen dialog box function in all
versions.
They did? there's a wonderful acronym in our industry and it's
called RTFM.
in a2003 try:
Dim f As FileDialog
Set f = Application.FileDialog(msoFileDialogFilePicker)
f.Show
MsgBox "file choose was " & f.SelectedItems(1)
Note that the above dialog also supports stuff like multi-select
And requires an FSO reference. Nobody with any sense uses early
binding for anything but built-in Access components.
eg:
Dim f As FileDialog
Set f = Application.FileDialog(msoFileDialogFilePicker)
f.AllowMultiSelect = True
f.Show
MsgBox "file choosen = " & f.SelectedItems.Count
MsgBox "1 st file choose was " & f.SelectedItems(1)
Every Access developer I know skips the dependency on the FSO and
uses direct API calls instead.
Didn't that exist in VB1? It did in FoxPro DOS. Of course, MS
must
assume Access applications are designed by DFUs, not developers.
As I said, it is built in, but if your like the horse that we lead
to water, I can't make you drink the water once you get there.
It is *not* built in at all. You're relying on a component outside
Access.
[]
[list of new string-handling functions in A2K and later omitted]
care to post your a97 solution for parsing the above???
Everybody already had code that did all these functions (rounding,
replace and split), so this is not really a big help, unless you've
never programed in A97. Those of us who go back to Access 2 don't
really need these new functions.
And the new functions lack optional features that my own
corresponding functions have, as a matter of fact (especially in
regard to Split).
I really could type on for a lot more here, and mention stuff like
XML support etc.
Who cares about that? I certainly have no need for it, and my bet is
that the vast majority of Access developers don't need it. And, of
course, it's not internal to Access, but provided through libraries
outside Access.
Furthermore, conditional formatting is WONDERFUL...and I use that
often in continues forms.
I used it for the first time last week and was underwhelmed. It
takes too long to paint the screen -- you can see the colors
changing down the list of rows in the continuous form.
[]
And, things like the ability to print the relationships window is
nice.
MS provided a wizard for that for A97 almost 10 years ago.
Another common request was record locking, and we have that now.
Not usefully, though, as a whole host of small things can cause your
app to revert to page locking.
And record locking is not all its cracked up to be, in my opinion.
Being able to edit code independent of forms in design mode, and
not get stuck in a model form like a97 during form design is a
huge change.
Huh? When a form is opened as a dialog, the code window is not
editable. You can't even type in the Immediate window. So what good
is it to be able to see the code window when you can look at it but
can't do anything?
And,
this means you can well better use two monitors during the
development process. (oh, right...that too much for you).
So you say, but I don't see any indication that Salad avoids dual
monitors.
Suffice to say that a LOT of features are the result of requests
by developers, and I can't begin to imagine going back to a97 with
the features that I use on a day to day bases in a2003.
Well, nobody is forcing you to. And Salad made no such suggestion.
His whole point was that some useful things were lost and some
useless things were added.
I used both for years, and after some time....going back to a97
will be painful....
For you.
For others, A97 feels like an old friend.
--
David W. Fenton http://www.dfenton.com/
usenet at dfenton dot com http://www.dfenton.com/DFA/
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