How to Share Forms and VBA

[f15x]

I am familiar with the common technique of splitting the Front-end (forms, reports, and VBA code) from the back-end data. I would like to take this concept a bit farther by having a common front-end, but allow that front-end to run against multiple back-end databases. The benefit of this would be that instead of maintaining 5 copies of the same front-end forms and code, it would be done only once. Does anyone have recommendations as to the best way this can be achieved?

 

[KenReay]

Hi

I have done something similar to this before, technique I used was to have a form which allowed the user to select the backend to use, then to relink the tables accordingly. I also included the name and path of the currently linked database at the bottom of the switchboard from, so the user could see at a glance which db they were currently linked to.

Hope this helps

Regards

Ken Reay
Freelance Solutions Developer
Boldon Information Systems Ltd
Website needs upgrading, but for now -

http://www.kenneth.reay.btinternet.co.uk

UK

 

[f15x]

KenReay, thank you for the suggestion, but I don't want to fiddle with relinking tables because that would affect other user's who might be using the same (shared) front-end but against a different set of back-end tables.

Does Access have a friendly way of sharing forms and code effectively across databases?

The best/simpliest approach I have considered yet, is the following:
1) Front-end .mdb links the table to K:\backend_data.mdb

2) Application is started from 5-different dos-batch-files. First step of each batch-file is:
subst k: /d REM Delete K: drive-letter
subst k: c:\location_of_backend_database
Then, batch-file then starts the front-end database. The drive-letter mapping would effectively cause the back-end data to be pointing to the desired data.

Although I have tested this, and it works, it seems there is probably a better way of doing this. When I went looking, every approach I have found so far, is very messy. Any other ideas out there?