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Neat trick required to identify test system from live system

I'm looking for a nifty (read: cheap) trick to brand, temporarily, a
test system which will run side-by-side with the production system.
Briefly, I've converted a client's app. to a SQL Server backend (which
has not been without its problems) and the client wants to run them in
parallel to do some fine tuning and get user feedback. For the most
part the systems are identical (except that the SQL Server system is
considerably slower) but only real company data will be stored in the
old system. However, the users are relatively naive, so the PM has
asked me if it would be possible to change something about the look of
the test system that would make it easier for the users to identify
which system they were using? Obviously in a web app I'd just change
the CSS or something.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this? The form design is not
particularly consistent (I didn't do it, honest!) and various
different colours are used throughout. Also, it needs to be
reasonably cheap.

Thanks

Edward
Jul 15 '08 #1
4 1162
te********@hotmail.com wrote:
I'm looking for a nifty (read: cheap) trick to brand, temporarily, a
test system which will run side-by-side with the production system.
Briefly, I've converted a client's app. to a SQL Server backend (which
has not been without its problems) and the client wants to run them in
parallel to do some fine tuning and get user feedback. For the most
part the systems are identical (except that the SQL Server system is
considerably slower) but only real company data will be stored in the
old system. However, the users are relatively naive, so the PM has
asked me if it would be possible to change something about the look of
the test system that would make it easier for the users to identify
which system they were using? Obviously in a web app I'd just change
the CSS or something.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this? The form design is not
particularly consistent (I didn't do it, honest!) and various
different colours are used throughout. Also, it needs to be
reasonably cheap.
You could easily change the application's title in the Windows title bar.
Something like "*** TEST *** rest of title...". would stand out pretty well.

There is also a method for changing the Access window background color, even
a way to put a picture there.

--
Rick Brandt, Microsoft Access MVP
Email (as appropriate) to...
RBrandt at Hunter dot com
Jul 15 '08 #2
On 15 Jul, 12:21, "Rick Brandt" <rickbran...@hotmail.comwrote:
[...]
You could easily change the application's title in the Windows title bar.
Something like "*** TEST *** rest of title...". would stand out pretty well.
I've done that, but some of the forms are rather cluttered and that
makes the title rather less noticeable.
There is also a method for changing the Access window background color, even
a way to put a picture there.
That's a good idea, but how?

I also thought of putting a MsgBox into each Form_Open event. Would
be slightly annoying but users would clickly learn that the <ENTER>
key was their friend.

Edward
Jul 15 '08 #3
On Tue, 15 Jul 2008 06:21:44 -0500, "Rick Brandt"
<ri*********@hotmail.comwrote:

In addition to the title and the background color of forms I often
also tick a timer that every 5 minutes or so says "This is a test
system - Do not use for production data".

-Tom.
>te********@hotmail.com wrote:
>I'm looking for a nifty (read: cheap) trick to brand, temporarily, a
test system which will run side-by-side with the production system.
Briefly, I've converted a client's app. to a SQL Server backend (which
has not been without its problems) and the client wants to run them in
parallel to do some fine tuning and get user feedback. For the most
part the systems are identical (except that the SQL Server system is
considerably slower) but only real company data will be stored in the
old system. However, the users are relatively naive, so the PM has
asked me if it would be possible to change something about the look of
the test system that would make it easier for the users to identify
which system they were using? Obviously in a web app I'd just change
the CSS or something.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this? The form design is not
particularly consistent (I didn't do it, honest!) and various
different colours are used throughout. Also, it needs to be
reasonably cheap.

You could easily change the application's title in the Windows title bar.
Something like "*** TEST *** rest of title...". would stand out pretty well.

There is also a method for changing the Access window background color, even
a way to put a picture there.
Jul 15 '08 #4
te********@hotmail.com wrote:
>I also thought of putting a MsgBox into each Form_Open event. Would
be slightly annoying but users would clickly learn that the <ENTER>
key was their friend.
After the 23rd time a user did that it would become highly annoying.

In this situation I made the background of the main menu/form a deep red.

Tony
--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
Please respond only in the newsgroups so that others can
read the entire thread of messages.
Microsoft Access Links, Hints, Tips & Accounting Systems at
http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm
Tony's Microsoft Access Blog - http://msmvps.com/blogs/access/
Jul 15 '08 #5

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