<pr*************@gmail.comwrote in message news:65d6de39-f218-4cba-9b55-
I'm curious as to the other new features of Access 2007 ... what Arc
pointed out was very interesting. Could anyone please highlight some
more new features of A2007 as compared to A2003 ? or ... please point
me to a site with some detailed info on this.
There is lot of things in 2007 that is really nice. Here is a few:
** Buttons background can now be transparent. People have asked for this
feature for a long time now. In addition to transparent buttons, MS access
now supports a number of really nice looking themes, and when you change
your theme, you obviously want the new background "theme" of your
application to show "though" the buttons (in place of that drab gray
button). Access 2007 allows this.
** buttons can now have both text in graphics associated with them. (golly
about time eh?). Before we were forced to choose graphic only or text only
for a button. What we did was simply place a button on a form with a
graphic, and then place below or beside the button a "label" with some text
on it (this was always a bit kluge looking) . I really wished for graphics
and text on a button. We now have this ability.
Here's a screen shot of the events template I just downloaded from
Microsoft's site, and you can see both the transparency of the buttons and
how graphics + text can be placed on a button. And, throw in the new themes
ability, and your software will look really up to date now.
** Forms and reports now have a new layout system that lets you move the
labels of controls, and the actual detail controls together. 15 years ago
the access report writer was the gold standard by which all report writers
are judged by. 15+ years later, and the report writer is still one of the
best. However, I was doing layout, and was commenting to a co-worker how
tedious and silly it was that I had to move all the labels by hand, and then
move all the detail section by hand in a report insert a new field (column)
in the middle of that report.
Suffice to say, they've addressed this problem with the new report
writer, and it's absolutely fantastic. I can't believe they came up with a
nice solution to this problem. Here is a video of this new feature in
action:
http://office.microsoft.com/home/vid...HA102374121033
(I will warn you the first couple of time to use the above grouping, you
have to get used to how works, otherwise it'll drive you bonkers, the
instant you figure how to use this new control and grouping, you'll love it)
** Another big feature in the above demo is that you can design your reports
in "view" mode now. This new "layout" mode for report saves you flipping
back and forth, back and forth all day long when you doing minor layout
changes to a report (and thus also saves you having the report regenerate
and reload the data also...and that saves even more time again).
In other words you can design the report while
*viewing* the data. This feature is really great when you're doing the final
finishing touches on a report, and it saves a lot of time.
*** Date Picker
We'll by golly, do you think it's about time that when you place a date
field on a form, you get little calendar drop down button built in for free
now? Wow!! I have to admit that access team are really doing a good job
here, and listening to our requests. This again is a really nice touch for
your applications.
*** new picture control
This again is been an area that's pretty been lacking in MS access. With the
new image control system, you can now finally develop applications in which
you deal with a lot of pictures. Even more amazing is you can actually show
different pictures in a column in a continuous form now. Hence, even when
your pictures are external (linked) in a folder somewhere, when you navigate
between different records on the form, you don't have to write any code to
update the image/picture that is to be displayed for that record. (and the
picture display supports the new png graphic formats as well as the old jpg
formats). Finally we can build applications in MS access without having to
do handstands. and the embedding of pictures and bloating problems has been
fixed. As well the report is able to handle those larger images and
not blow up (run out of memory).
In one fell swoop us developers can now develop applications that deal with
a lot of images, and this was opens up a whole new area and class of
applications that most of us developers just simply avoided because MS
access was so limited in this area. Now, we can build photographic
databases, or catalogs with images with far greater ease, and more
importantly far more reliability.
So, hey, we can now display different pictures in a continuous form. About
time!!
*** developer tools and developer edition is free now.
Yup, you heard this correct. with access 2007, you can now download
installed and use the runtime, and the packaging wizard tools. Last time I
looked, an upgrade from access 2003 to 2007 was about $109 dollars. When you
think about this, that makes MS access a bargain right now. by believe the
full retail version of MS access is only $229.
*** pdf ability
This is a nice touch, and a few other posters mention this feature.
*** data collection forms
This simply means you can build an e-mail system using outlook, and e-mail
out a person a question or form, the users fills out this form, and sends it
back to you, and the data is then placed into a MS access for you.
*** improved cut and paste from excel
You can now paste in data from excel, and the data types etc. are set
correctly for you.
*** Control layouts
This is shown in the above video. The control layout can also be used to
group your buttons together to build something that looks like a menu bar
(and that means the menu bars placed on the actual form itself, not in the
top menu bar like we used to). This what the events template in the above
screen shot shows.
This means when you add or remove buttons from your form, the rest the
buttons move over. The same thing occurs when you resize one button, the
whole group of buttons gets moved over as you do this. So this new layout
system is a real nice touch to MS access, and again it's about time. Once
again forms can also be changed while in view mode and you can move things
around, and again don't have to flip back and forth between design mode and
layout mode.
*** a new "stacked" form type. This new stacked form type has a continues
type format the top (detail), and as I navigate this grid, the bottom
half of the form will be a standard layout form and moves along with the top
part of the form. Quite a common interface that many of us developers use
for years, but now I can develop this without having to write code, or use
a form + sub form combination.
*** Ribbon bar
You can hide the ribbon, but it's also a really nice touch. if you're into
building applications that look modern and cool, you can't beat the ribbon.
It's just really nice looking.
*** far better share point integration.
The options to link and/or upload tables to share point "list" works way
better then they did in access 2003.
I could probably type on for quite a while about more features. However,
between the nice looking themes and updated UI, and free developer tools,
access 2007 is a big release, and really has some nice features that us
developers have been asking for over the years.
--
Albert D. Kallal (Access MVP)
Edmonton, Alberta Canada
pl*****************@msn.com 
