AEU Meeting Date 3 Apr 2024 starting at 18:00 UK Time (UTC+1)                            Page Last Updated 8 Apr 2024



Meeting Details:

This Access Europe meeting was held on Wednesday 3 Apr 2024 starting at 18:00 UK time (6PM UTC+1) and finishing at about 19:15 (7.15PM)

The start time is equivalent to 19:00 (7PM) in Central Europe and 10AM in Seattle / PST

Please note that the UK is currently on Summer Time (UTC+1). For local times, please check World Time Buddy

We use Zoom as our meeting application. Please click this link to Get Zoom if you don’t already have it.

When the time comes for the meeting, please use the following link: Join Zoom Meeting
If you are asked, use: Meeting ID: 924 3129 5683 ; Passcode: 661210

For more connection options, please see the AccessUserGroups.org web page for this event

All sessions are recorded and later uploaded to the Access User Groups channel on YouTube

If you do not wish to be part of the recording, please ensure your webcam and microphone are both switched off during the meeting.



Topic outline:

This month’s session was led by former MVP, Dale Fye who led a presentation in which he gave a detailed explanation of how built-in and custom CommandBars are used to create right click context menus. He also demonstrated his free Access Shortcut Tool add-in for working with Command Bars.
Finally, he explained a Simple Audit Log he has created for a client.


Command bars and the Access Shortcut Tool

After hearing many people complain on the various internet forums, and some discussions with other Access MVPs, Dale developed the Access Shortcut Tool add-in to simplify the process of creating shortcut menus for use in Access applications.

He did a lot of research during this process and wrote several articles for Experts-Exchange on the subject:
1.   Understanding and using Commandbars (Shortcut menus), Part 1
2.   Understanding and using Commandbars (Creating your own), Part 2
3.   Commandbars (Using built-in shortcut menus), Part 3
4.   Using shortcut (right-click) menus in the Access runtime environment


The free Access Shortcut Tool add-in is the culmination of Dale's research into Command bars (shortcut menus).
It is available for download from http://dev-soln.com/access-shortcut-right-click-tool/

Simple Audit Log
A number of years ago, Dale had a client who needed to track all changes made within a database application.
This was a financial database and he needed to be able to track whenever the value in any field in several of the database tables was changed.
At the time, Dale found a workable solution that had been created and documented by the renowned Access MVP, Allen Browne, so he started using it.

Allen's solution required a separate history table for every table that was being logged, and wrote an entire record to that table whenever any field in the source table was changed. This resulted in some very large history tables.

In 2017, Dale had the occasion to revisit the need for an audit log for another project, and decided that he could write a relatively streamlined version of the process, with a single history table, and where he only logged the changes to each record.
Dale developed his own Simple Audit Log. This application is form centric, it does not track changes made directly in tables.
However, with relatively simple modifications, it can be modified to handle changes made through bulk imports and deletions.


Background:

Dale is a retired Army officer with a Masters Degree in Operations Research. He spent the last ten years of his active military career doing data analysis and developing database applications in a combination of dBase, Clipper, and early versions of Microsoft Access.
In total, Dale has over 29 years working with Access and a dozen years working with SQL Server (off and on).

Dale has participated in various on-line forums for Access for over twenty years and was selected as an Access MVP in 2013.
He remained an MVP through to 2016, when family medical issues forced him to reduce the time spent on the various forums.

Dale worked as a database developer for a variety of US Government agencies and private corporations, until he started his own software company (Dev-Soln, LLC) in 2010.
In 2014, Dale quit his day job and has been operating solely as a one-man development shop ever since.
Based in the USA, Dale was president of the Eastern Time chapter of AccessUserGroups.org until 2022.

His website is http://dev-soln.com



Downloads:

Click to view a PDF of the presentation used in this session: ShortcutTool and Audit Log Demo



Video:

The meeting was recorded and the video is now available on the Access Europe YouTube channel at https://youtu.be/qcuz922_rgY or you can click below:

       



Colin Riddington           Mendip Data Systems                 Last Updated 8 Apr 2024

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