microsoftaccess2003 21 october

Microsoft Access 2003

3 stars (Review from an Office developer) - I've had the pleasure of developing and maintaining a new database in Access 2003 over the past 6 months. The previous 3 years before that I had developed in Access 97 and migrated to Access XP. So, what are my impressions of 2003? Overall, 2003 is the same great product that XP was with minimal additional features and some new annoying ones. Here is everything from the help file under the "what's new" section for your viewing pleasure: * View information on object dependencies * Error checking in forms and reports * Propagating field properties * Smart tags * Back up a database or project * Windows XP theme support * Improved sorting in controls * Autocorrect options * Enhanced font capabilities in SQL views * Context-based Help in SQL view * Importing, exporting, and linking * XML support * Security enhancements More new features... * New look for Office * Tablet PC support * Microsoft Office Online * Improving quality for the customer (This is a system tray icon that flashes a tool tip asking for feedback much like beta test software) From this list, the only notable development improvement is the improved XML support, but unless this support is critical to your application development, I would stay far away from this version and stick with XP (which I rate as 5 stars). I haven't found any improvements to the Visual Basic editor. There are a few new objects you can reference in VBA: dependency collections, smart tag collections, auto-correct, and sub form objects. Form design is mostly unchanged with no new controls to add to forms. They did improve the design interface with smart tags which helps messing around with controls a little. Propagating field properties sounds nice, but has limited use since it only propagates from table design view to all controls that are bound to it. That sounds dangerous. Are you sure you want to push that button not knowing exactly everything it will change? The featu...
Microsoft :: microsoft :: access :: 2003 :: microsoft :: business :: finance :: business :: finance :: microsoftaccess2003 21 october :: 200 :: Microsoft Access 2003