Once I saw a DB made in MS Access that worked as a normal program, i.e with an executable file that opened a beautiful UI and allowed access to the forms and reports. I've trying to do the same, I even googled but didn't find how do it. Anyone knows how to build such standalone App with Access?
You cant make an access database into an executable file. It just cant happen however you can fool people into thinking that they are not using access a number of ways, for example
Custom splash screen (just put a bmp
file in the folder and name it the
same as your database)
Hide the access window and toolbars
Change the access icon
For example take a look at this screen shot
There are lots of things going on here and it would be hard to tell that it is built using good old access 97 (Yes I know the standard toolbar kind of gives it away, it will be going at somepoint).
I believe the tool is called the Microsoft Access Runtime toolkit or something along those lines. The latest version is free, a departure from the previous versions which I believe you had to pay for. From the previous version I tinkered with, it comes with a tool to make a EXE file from the MDB or ACCB file, a handful of icons for the EXE to use if you are lacking one, and a program to help you generate Microsoft Help files for your application.
This is a link to the Developer Extensions - I believe the 2007 version of what I described above:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyId=D96A8358-ECE4-4BEE-A844-F81856DCEB67&displaylang=en
Here is a link for the runtime, which doesn't convert your Access database into an executable file, but would allow it to run on computers without Access installed:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?familyid=D9AE78D9-9DC6-4B38-9FA6-2C745A175AED&displaylang=en
NOTE: Both of these are for Access 2007, the version I run. Your version might require something different - but should be easily located on Microsoft's website.
If you want to fool the user in thinking that they are not using access it will take some ingenuity. I have done this. You will need a way to make nice 2D images that you will import into access, and then set them up like buttons, and give them functionality. Make sure you over lay them on a splash screen of some kind. Not sure if you know VBA but it will be needed.
At the end make sure you go in to the setting, and turn off anything that might allow the user to alter the form in any way. And then rename the file's extension like this: fileName.accdr
This is as close to a normal program that you are going to get, and remember it will only look as good as the art you put into it.
Related
I'm very sorry for the possibly confusing title and also for the following expressions, as I'm a complete newbie into coding.
Background:
To make life a bit easier for our team at work, I would like to create a super simple HTML page which lists the most useful links to other tools in our company but is also able to send commands to a converter which exists as a .jar file (which requires different arguments - see attached pdf). Currently, we are running the specific command in the standard command prompt window in Windows to convert files into different formats.
Basic idea:
It would be so cool to have a very simple GUI (incl. some buttons + input masks). The attached PDF should explain it quite well IMO. I would then send around the package (containing the .html + .jar converter files) to my colleagues, so they can open them locally on their PC. If this works out fine, I would love to run this page in on a local intranet web-server, so everyone in our company is able to use the page (without having to store anything locally on their pc).
I know that it might be a bit too much to ask for, but it would be great if you can give me some kind of how-to. Or maybe someone has some nice hints where to start with. I know a bit of html stuff. The most hardest part to me is to execute the inputs with the .jar file.
I would be really happy if someone is able to help out as it has always been a tiny dream to have this "tooling page".
Link to the PDF:
https://wetransfer.com/downloads/ced5bc513b6c551202ba45e4aecbf1bb20220223131350/48f236a4f0989d7cc0c4f3359c70e60320220223131410/269175
I'm the new maintainer of an application that was previously done by a contractor. The application was developed using VBA inside an Access project. It consists completely of forms (one of which is opened using autoexec macro) and stuff like click handlers. I don't see any use it makes of Access functionality except for accessing the tables using ODBC table linking done in Access.
These are the reasons I would like to convert this application to a standalone application if possible:
There is no version control at all, just multiple copies of the same project with an incrementing number appended to the filename
The VBA IDE is super annoying
I think the code could then be migrated to more modern languages like C# or VB.net making it more maintainable
Is there any way to convert this to a separate Windows application (I guess using WinForms as that seems to be the same as the forms in VBA) that can be maintained in Visual Studio?
Access for 20 years has supported the standard ‘Microsoft source code control interface. This is outlined in this post:
Version control for VBA file
And this one here:
How to implement version control in Access 2003?
There really little or no reason why Access + VBA, or vb.net can’t be used with source code control. However the SCC add-in that was part of Access was depreciated in 2013. So for versions after 2010, then you can use a script to export the objects. This works quite well – I am using GitHub with Access. So you need a script to export objects now that the SCC add-in is not included in versions beyond 2010 and it works rather well. Access can view each object as "logical" separate. So having all parts in a folder, a zip file, or the Access continuer is moot - don't fall for the physical vs logical concept here that so many people fail to grasp.
•The VBA IDE is super annoying
Hum, never really had much issue with it. I spend good parts of my day using VS2013 and vb.net, but for the most part the VBA IDE is fine for most Access applications. Can you give an example of what feature or something that you find bad with the VBA IDE?
•I think the code could then be migrated to more modern languages like C# or VB.net making it more maintainable
I can’t see why code written in c++, or Pascal or VBA is going to be more or less maintainable? You have to give an example of what you mean here? Maintainable code is maintainable if it is COBOL, Pascal, or VBA.
I guess using WinForms as that seems to be the same as the forms in VBA
No, Access does not use winforms.
Access as a developer tool not really different then say using FoxPro, or say Delphi. Such code and systems can be re-written like any other software development system would require that I am aware of say in the last 30 years of desktop development.
As a general rule, something written in say Delphi, or Access + VBA is not going to by some act of magic is going to be converted to WinForms and .net. That goes for just about any IDE and system I am aware of.
So software in the general computer industry never worked this way in the past, and thus Access is really much the same as most everything else in this regards.
Plead/Preparing for standard SO backlash
This is a generic question I apologize as I'm not an SO "noob" and I realize this doesn't fit the format exactly, if you can suggest a better place for this query I'm all ears. If you choose to down vote or close please suggest an alternative.
Question
Is anyone aware of projects that already generate a PSD file from within AS3?
Background (everything below here you may not care about if you just want to answer a question, but if interested I could use a hand)
I've found an AS3 PSD parser here.
For some basic tests this has worked fine (after some tweaking to avoid errors). However, now the task is to reverse this process to write a PSD file.
Current plan (and overall goal)
I also found a file format specification document.
My plan at this point is to just start from the top and work my way through the document building each of the parts of the file (and helper value objects) as I go along. Since this will be a very time consuming process, I'm wondering if there's any other previous work I could build off of.
Ultimately my goal is to integrate this code into a mobile drawing project I've been working on for some time. Since it's a mobile project I have to deal with the possibility that the OS kills my app to reclaim memory, in that case I need to be able to save/load the existing state of the app (currently has layers of BitmapData similar to photoshop, plus would be cool to be able to open PSD files and open my files from the device in photoshop with layers preserved).
Links to live version and code
The app can be downloaded here (is free will remain free, no ads, app is funded by love and the desire to create something cool everyone can have/use):
Google Play
Amazon App Store
Still working on an iOS release (process is more involved than the other two stores)
The code can be found here on github (Flash Builder project files in the FlashBuilderProject/FingerPainting folder).
Legal
Essentially the code contained in that repository is all MIT or Apache Licensed (will be going back to double each of the authors sites to get the original licenses to copy in now, just in case). I'm not a lawyer, but I believe I legitimately obtained everything in the project currently and am simply obligated to include the licenses and make my extensions of the source code available in some cases. (fonts came from google web fonts and downloaded Roboto from Google directly http://developer.android.com/design/style/typography.html). Any code in the com.shaunhusain package I wrote and you can assume is GPL for now. If anyone more legally savvy wants to tell me I'm breaking the law, and how, I would appreciate it.
The portions included and used from other sites include
Actuate MIT License
PNGEncoder2 License included in source from Adobe permits usage.
ShareANE I don't have a license for this one (he didn't include one) the author is chinese, as such I'm having some difficulty figuring out how to contact him, but am assuming I'm safe to use his code.
A couple of pieces of code are in the repository but currently not used including a GIF parser/encoder from bytearray.org and a ColorMatrix class from Grant Skinner.
Update
After trying this for a while I ended up deciding to just use the ORA format since it is open and far far simpler and works fine with GIMP and Krita (open source editors).
I'm not sure about the intended use, but if you are compiling the file in Flash, you might be able to use JSFL to export the fla to a PSD. Then tie the JSFL functionality to a button in a SWF that you load as a panel in the IDE. JSFL is pretty powerful, however it only works within the IDE/locally.
Or has this been abandoned? I can't seem to find a modern sample project. I haven't been able to make any the old code I find work. I just want to write a simple Mac app that accesses an external MySQL database that's also involved in a PHP website.
The old CocoaMySQL project has been abandoned, but the project has been resurrected as Sequel Pro.
It's open source and you can get the source code here.
If you want a straight library that allows you to access MySQL, you might try the commercial MacSQL framework.
You can also just use the MySQL C API directly, however be careful because if you want to use this in a commercial app the licensing fees are high.
You might find it easier to write some PHP code on the server to deliver the results to your client using JSON or some other lightweight data interchange format. PHP has direct support for JSON and there is a great Cocoa framework that makes it easy to parse and generate JSON code.
This method allows you to completely abstract the database connection from your client, so it is relatively trivial to change the database if necessary in future.
Thanks, Rob, I have actually seen the links to Sequel Pro but I was confused when I got there. Part of my problem is that I am really bad at adding things to an Xcode project. Once I have a project in hand with the correct libraries and whatever all linked up, I can make use of the various methods or functions.
That's why I was asking if someone had a super simple project using MySQL that would hopefully compile for me right out of the box. I can then add all my objects and coding.
Can't seem to find anyone out there willing to hold the hand of us project-challenged. The project settings dialog box and codes that go in various boxes therein are very confusing to me.
I have a huge MS Access document with built-in VBA codebase. Is it possible to track the file (as I am developing it) with a (mercurial) version control system? Can I extract code and track that? Or is it just the-binary-file-path? Thanks.
It's possible with MS Access to export most of the code through scripts. I posted some here a while ago:
How do you use version control with Access development?
It's possible to version-control binary files, but it would be a little cleaner (IMO) to have the code separate. If it works for you though, then by all means do what you do.
There is a nice tool here https://github.com/hilkoc/vbaDeveloper .
It allows you to easily export and import all your vba code and can do this automatically as soon as you click 'save'.
The export files are all plain text which you can then put in version control in the usual way.
Access all the way up to 2010 has supported source code control, and that includes support for team foundation server. The fact that you place all files in ONE zip file, one folder on a hard drive, or one container called an accDB is a MOOT point. As long as EACH individual object can be viewed as a SEPARATE object, then why do you care if one is using a zip file, or an accDB file? This is a “logical” view vs a physical view issue.
The simple matter is EACH OBJECT IN ACCESS CAN BE EXPORTED AS A TEXT OBJECT. Thus Access has supported source control integrate using this ability with the standard Microsoft SCC interface since Access 97 (that is 17+ years!!).
When you use SCC such as Visual Source safe or Team Foundation server then the BUILT IN UI in Access supports display the objects status in question. You have resolution down to the form, report, sql query and code module level. So multiple developers can all work on the application at the same time. They only need check out the forms, reports quires etc. they are working on. Each developer thus has their own local build.
If using Visual Source Safe, then you see this in the ribbon:
If you using team foundation server, then you see this:
And for objects checked out, you see this:
And when you open, or even right click on an object, you see these additional options:
Of course given that “few” use this feature or even know what it is (and the posts on SO confirm this lack of knowledge), then it is LITTLE surprise that the feature was dropped in Access 2013 after all these years!. However some 3rd party add-ins claim to restore this ability. So the ability to export objects in 2013 as individual text files STILL remains in place.