conneticat
Programmer
What's the opinion of everyone about Microsoft Access 2007 and it's incomprehensible ribbon, attempt to reorganize itself and those "multivalue fields"? Should we fear it or love it? Do we have a choice?
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Is Microsoft Access 2007 as revolting as it looks?
- Thread starter conneticat
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I use Acc2K7 a dozen times a week or so. It's good once you get used to it. Just like Vista, I hate the cartoonish juvenile look of the buttons & such. There is an option in Access to revert to the classic view, but I haven't tried it yet.
"Don't be irreplaceable. If you can't be replaced, you can't be promoted."
"Don't be irreplaceable. If you can't be replaced, you can't be promoted."
Here's a great article
2007 is not as bad as it appears. I would guess that there will soon come a day whem Microsoft not longer supports earlier versions and you'll have to use Access 2007.
I beginning to get used to the new version. There are some good features to 20007. One fix I liked was the problem with the mouse wheel. Access 2007 now scrolls in Datasheet and Continuous view, but not form view. This use to be a problem with users using the mouse wheel and having the record scroll over to the next record. A disaster if the user did not notice and started entering data into the wrong record. I was never able to figure out the codes that were suggested to prevent this. I developed other tricks in my programming to get around this but it was always something that drove me nuts to have to program my forms to prevent this.
Check out the aforementioned website for more good news about Access 2007.
2007 is not as bad as it appears. I would guess that there will soon come a day whem Microsoft not longer supports earlier versions and you'll have to use Access 2007.
I beginning to get used to the new version. There are some good features to 20007. One fix I liked was the problem with the mouse wheel. Access 2007 now scrolls in Datasheet and Continuous view, but not form view. This use to be a problem with users using the mouse wheel and having the record scroll over to the next record. A disaster if the user did not notice and started entering data into the wrong record. I was never able to figure out the codes that were suggested to prevent this. I developed other tricks in my programming to get around this but it was always something that drove me nuts to have to program my forms to prevent this.
Check out the aforementioned website for more good news about Access 2007.
I'm doing a lot of work testing Access and Excel applications (XP) against 2007 ahead of an organisation wide Office upgrade in September and October for my employer.
Its true that there is a lot to get used to with the new user interface (eg ribbon instead of toolbar, navigation pane instead of database window), however, once you get over that, the actual applications themselves work the same.
There are useful features, notably the PDF generator addon which you can use to create PDF files of reports etc without third party software.
As we are going to be working in a mixed version environment for the foreseeable future though, I haven't got around to implementing Office 2007 specific features.
For more details of my Office 2007 upgrade experiences, see thread1121-1419367.
For Access, it is worth pointing out that the Office file format convertors from Microsoft don't cover .accdb files, only Word/Excel/Powerpoint.
John
Its true that there is a lot to get used to with the new user interface (eg ribbon instead of toolbar, navigation pane instead of database window), however, once you get over that, the actual applications themselves work the same.
There are useful features, notably the PDF generator addon which you can use to create PDF files of reports etc without third party software.
As we are going to be working in a mixed version environment for the foreseeable future though, I haven't got around to implementing Office 2007 specific features.
For more details of my Office 2007 upgrade experiences, see thread1121-1419367.
For Access, it is worth pointing out that the Office file format convertors from Microsoft don't cover .accdb files, only Word/Excel/Powerpoint.
John
I've just started using Access 2007 and I'm finding some of what appear to be problems:
1. It doesn't seem that you can create an Access project any more. If there's a way to do that, I wish somebody would tell me how, because Access help sure doesn't.
2. Filtering in forms doesn't work like it used to. Some forms with a selection combo box on them will filter to the criteria selected, others don't. It looks like forms with subforms are the one most likely not to work. And clicking on that damn filter button sometimes gives records that have no relationship to the criteria you've selected (when the form doesn't display them like it did in access 2000/2003).
3. I don't like all of the crap at the top (and side). Instead of taking less screen real estate, it takes a lot more.
4. No documentation, and the on line help is typical Microsoft help--lousy.
5. Overall, my impressions are that the changes in the look are more just to make it look different. And the filter situation with forms is very annoying. For the price of the product they should include a book like Access 2007 for Dummies that talks about how it works and includes at least one chapter about the differences between it and earlier versions and how to handle those differences.
It's good when a product is improved (not sure about that yet), but not good when it only sort of runs earlier versions, with some things working differently that in previous versions.
Bob
1. It doesn't seem that you can create an Access project any more. If there's a way to do that, I wish somebody would tell me how, because Access help sure doesn't.
2. Filtering in forms doesn't work like it used to. Some forms with a selection combo box on them will filter to the criteria selected, others don't. It looks like forms with subforms are the one most likely not to work. And clicking on that damn filter button sometimes gives records that have no relationship to the criteria you've selected (when the form doesn't display them like it did in access 2000/2003).
3. I don't like all of the crap at the top (and side). Instead of taking less screen real estate, it takes a lot more.
4. No documentation, and the on line help is typical Microsoft help--lousy.
5. Overall, my impressions are that the changes in the look are more just to make it look different. And the filter situation with forms is very annoying. For the price of the product they should include a book like Access 2007 for Dummies that talks about how it works and includes at least one chapter about the differences between it and earlier versions and how to handle those differences.
It's good when a product is improved (not sure about that yet), but not good when it only sort of runs earlier versions, with some things working differently that in previous versions.
Bob
missinglinq
Programmer
The single most telling statement I've heard about v2007, made by someone (can't remember who, but a heavy weight developer) on the MS Access newsgroup, was that the learning curve for v2007 is about three times as big for an experienced Access developer as it is for a newbie!
I think Access 2003 is going to be similar to VB6. I took a VB6 course, the year before VB.Net was released, given by an old VB hand. Like Allen Browne, this gut started working with Visual Basic when it first hit the market! He just knew that VB.Net was going to eradicate VB6 from the face of the earth! I argued the point at the time, but he remained convinced. I happened to see him out shopping last week, and before I could say anything, he said "I know! You were right! VB6 is still alive and well and probably will be for years to come!"
I think Access 2003 is going to do the same thing. Version 2007 is such a radical departure that I think people will continue using 2003 long beyond the natural life span of a superseded version. Last year, with 2007 already out and 2003 being whited-haired at four years old, Microsoft still released a major service pack for it. And lastly, of course, there are still bunches and bunches of people out there, just starting their Access experiences, using versions 97, 2000 and 2002!
The Missinglinq
Richmond, Virginia
There's ALWAYS more than one way to skin a cat!
I think Access 2003 is going to be similar to VB6. I took a VB6 course, the year before VB.Net was released, given by an old VB hand. Like Allen Browne, this gut started working with Visual Basic when it first hit the market! He just knew that VB.Net was going to eradicate VB6 from the face of the earth! I argued the point at the time, but he remained convinced. I happened to see him out shopping last week, and before I could say anything, he said "I know! You were right! VB6 is still alive and well and probably will be for years to come!"
I think Access 2003 is going to do the same thing. Version 2007 is such a radical departure that I think people will continue using 2003 long beyond the natural life span of a superseded version. Last year, with 2007 already out and 2003 being whited-haired at four years old, Microsoft still released a major service pack for it. And lastly, of course, there are still bunches and bunches of people out there, just starting their Access experiences, using versions 97, 2000 and 2002!
The Missinglinq
Richmond, Virginia
There's ALWAYS more than one way to skin a cat!
I've developed many applications, including major applications, with Access 97, 2000, and 2003, more recently using SQL Server for the back end data, so I'm one of those heavy weight developers. I really resent Microsoft changing the way basic operations work, the filtering being the most important example I've found so far. It means that when my employer installs Access 2007 on new desktops (using Office 2003 at this point), all bets are off regarding the operation of existing applications.
There's enough work to do without Microsoft creating more. I really wish there was a good alternative to Access (i.e., a complete application development/database manager system), but so far the alternatives I've tried have been very disappointing (and generally didn't really work).
Bob
There's enough work to do without Microsoft creating more. I really wish there was a good alternative to Access (i.e., a complete application development/database manager system), but so far the alternatives I've tried have been very disappointing (and generally didn't really work).
Bob
Menus! WHAT menu is a better discription, yes we have a ribbon, that has ever thing (well somewhere I expect). There is some sites around well for word/excel that show screen shot of 2003 and what to do in 2007 but not for access. Enen in DOS program we had menues. now this is a new approach. If you are a new user (maybe a 4 year old) this new approach will be the only thing you will know. But if you been around a new way is hard. It is like when Novell change netware from 3.x to 4.x. Yes I have mix felling about Vista.
I am concerned with transferring a database to 2007 as it is a new ball game. My has over 100 pages of VB code, and I know it will not work in 2007. But that a new topic.
Never give up never give in.
There are no short cuts to anything worth doing
I am concerned with transferring a database to 2007 as it is a new ball game. My has over 100 pages of VB code, and I know it will not work in 2007. But that a new topic.
Never give up never give in.
There are no short cuts to anything worth doing
MePenguin2000
Technical User
Some interesting comments here. I've been running Access/Office 2007 since June, and have now decided to downgrade to 2003... and if that fails then back to good old 2000!
Part of the reason is those damn "easy to use" ribbons, which I just find annoying. I rarely find what I need quickly, and just add most things to the Quick Access Bar.
As far as I know there is no "classic view" in Office 2007, although bizzarely enough you can buy an add-in to get back the old menus and toolbars!
The main reason for giving up though is that research and teaching software we developed in Access 2000, and have running with the Access 2000 Runtime library, does not seem to work on machines with 2007. It varies by system, sometimes an odd error, sometimes a crash, sometimes no toolbar.
As Bob said, there's enough to do already, and I just don't have the time or resources to debug this
As a result of this I've abandonned MS in my latest project. We're going PostGreSQL and Java...
Phil
Part of the reason is those damn "easy to use" ribbons, which I just find annoying. I rarely find what I need quickly, and just add most things to the Quick Access Bar.
As far as I know there is no "classic view" in Office 2007, although bizzarely enough you can buy an add-in to get back the old menus and toolbars!
The main reason for giving up though is that research and teaching software we developed in Access 2000, and have running with the Access 2000 Runtime library, does not seem to work on machines with 2007. It varies by system, sometimes an odd error, sometimes a crash, sometimes no toolbar.
As Bob said, there's enough to do already, and I just don't have the time or resources to debug this
As a result of this I've abandonned MS in my latest project. We're going PostGreSQL and Java...
Phil
The company I work for has only recently (this year) upgraded to Office2003 and as yet there are no plans to migrate further - I should know it'll be my task. The general rule I follow is, 'Do I need to upgrade?', if it's for the sake of it then I generally don't and if Microsoft aren't going to support a particular product (which works fine) then that still won't tempt me if everything I do in Access works great under 2K3.
We have had many applications that, even now, run in both Access 2000 to 2003. For some we have a separate "2003" version, but other than converting the application to the Access 2003 format (through the menu option), we haven't encountered problems or had to change any code. (Not like moving from Access 97 to 2000 or, for that matter, 2.0 to 97).
However, I've been told that next year where I work computers that are replaced with new models will have Access 2007. (This year they have been installing 2003, even though the computers are purchased with a 2007 license.) Recently I managed to get one with 2007 installed and have been discovering that Access 2007 changes the way some things work and has some really annoying "features", such as preventing the VBA code from being executed until you tell it to run it and, as discussed here, the major hassles involved when you want to design an application. Part of the problem is that 2007 includes Microsoft's interface (Vista) designed for 5 year olds that also takes a lot more screen real estate and hides many functions that you need during design.
I thought my company was slow to adopt, so I'm surprised to hear that your company is just now upgrading to 2003. In this case I think it's a smart move.
Bob
However, I've been told that next year where I work computers that are replaced with new models will have Access 2007. (This year they have been installing 2003, even though the computers are purchased with a 2007 license.) Recently I managed to get one with 2007 installed and have been discovering that Access 2007 changes the way some things work and has some really annoying "features", such as preventing the VBA code from being executed until you tell it to run it and, as discussed here, the major hassles involved when you want to design an application. Part of the problem is that 2007 includes Microsoft's interface (Vista) designed for 5 year olds that also takes a lot more screen real estate and hides many functions that you need during design.
I thought my company was slow to adopt, so I'm surprised to hear that your company is just now upgrading to 2003. In this case I think it's a smart move.
Bob
MasterRacker
New member
Some interesting info on the UI and how it's not really bigger for the average user:
And here's everything you ever wanted to know about the development of the UI:
For those who massively customize, it hurts, but it's much better than adaptive menus, which are worse than useless and need to be turned off as soon as you install Office.
_____
Jeff
[small][purple]It's never too early to begin preparing for [/purple]International Talk Like a Pirate Day
"The software I buy sucks, The software I write sucks. It's time to give up and have a beer..." - Me[/small]
And here's everything you ever wanted to know about the development of the UI:
For those who massively customize, it hurts, but it's much better than adaptive menus, which are worse than useless and need to be turned off as soon as you install Office.
_____
Jeff
[small][purple]It's never too early to begin preparing for [/purple]International Talk Like a Pirate Day
"The software I buy sucks, The software I write sucks. It's time to give up and have a beer..." - Me[/small]
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conneticat
Programmer
....The setting is called "reinstall Microsoft Access 2003"
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