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  Welcome To Tips-FX - Edition 18
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Tips-FX is an email newsletter that provides free tips,  help and information for skilled Microsoft Access users and related software disciplines.

Produced by Garry Robinson from Sydney, Australia.

In this post Olympics edition

SHAPING ADO QUERIES WITH ACCESS SUBDATASHEETS
A SEARCHABLE EBOOK FOR ACCESS DEVELOPERS
CREATING AN INDEX SEARCH FACILITY FOR YOUR WEB SITE
ACCESS SNAPSHOTS - SAVE YOUR REPORTS AS SECURE DOCUMENTS
CONSTRUCTING HTML HELP FILES
ARE YOU READY TO CALL MICROSOFT ??? OFFICE SERVICE PACK 1
GOOD READING AND USEFUL SITES

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COMPACT YOUR ACCESS DATABASE FROM A FORM

Put this 1 liner under a command button on your main form or utilities form

Private Sub cmdCompactDatabase_Click()

  SendKeys "%TDC"

End Sub


That will run the standard Access compacting option from the Tools ... Database Menu

This sure beats writing DAO to compact the database.   If the database is opened by more than one user then the compacting will fail (gracefully).   In Access 97, the database is reopened and ignores the  startup sequence for the database.   Users would have to know which form to open to continue.  Access 2000 opens as expected.

A reader sent this in. As my customers and I all use the workbench for compacting, this method wasn't used too much in the real world.

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SHAPING ADO QUERIES WITH ACCESS SUBDATASHEETS

By Garry Robinson
 
This article shows how easy it is to set up a subdatasheet, and offers a wizard that will convert your subdatasheet into a shaped recordset. The wizard will allow you to convert your subdatasheets to hierarchical recordsets by writing VB, using a new data provider supplied with ADO (ActiveX Data Objects), called shaped datasets. The generated code will allow you to display the same hierarchical information in the hierarchical flexgrid component supplied with VB 6.

http://www.vb123.com/Toolbox/00_docs/datashaping_ado.htm

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A SEARCHABLE EBOOK FOR ACCESS DEVELOPERS

This month  (October, 2000) free feature article at

www.pinpub.com

describes how you can turn Access databases into HTML help files.   The really important thing about this article is that Smart Access now has a searchable resource file that allows you to find that important Smart Access article without going online.   As there are a quite a number of Smart Access readers who also read this newsletter, why not download this searchable eBook (250k) from the following location.  

ftp://ftp.gr-fx.com/SAarticles.chm

If you like/dislike this new format for searching for Smart Access articles, send me an email at access@gr-fx.com and I will pass on your comments to the appropriate people at Pinnacle Publishing.  Note that this version also includes the first 7editions of the free Smart Access ezine.

For more on what you need to read HTML help files, try this resource page
 
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q245/4/77.ASP


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CREATING AN INDEX SEARCH FACILITY FOR YOUR WEB SITE

After yet more research into HTML help files, I developed a very general solution to read every HTML page at  vb123.com and produce a list of Indexed key words that link to the appropriate pages.   Why not try out this new searchable index at

http://www.vb123.com/search

This powerful indexed keywords search facility is now an integral part of "The Toolbox".  The software that I developed to automatically generate the Indexed list is available exclusively to new purchasers of The Toolbox or those who have purchase the yearly subscribers option.  You can find out about and purchase The Toolbox at

http://www.vb123.com/Toolbox

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CONSTRUCTING HTML HELP FILES

To construct the HTML help, you are going to have a copy of HTML help compiler that comes with the Microsoft Developer edition of Office 2000.  Luckily though, exactly the same tool is available as a free download from

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/tools/htmlhelp/

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ACCESS SNAPSHOTS - SAVE YOUR REPORTS AS SECURE DOCUMENTS

Have you ever though about saving your Access reports as documents.  I save my invoices as Access Snapshots and as a result, no software modifications can effect what I sent originally to my customers.   Read about them at 
 
http://www.microsoft.com/accessdev/articles/snapshot.htm

This has a number of examples on using vb, html and Access to generate and distribute the snapshots.  

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A WORD FROM OUR SPONSER

Need a Web Host ?
Want to see how your web host compares to others
Search the web's LARGEST hosting directory by clicking below

http://vb123.com/sponsor


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ARE YOU READY TO CALL MICROSOFT ??? OFFICE SERVICE PACK 1

Office 2000 Service Release 1 CD retail version now includes the bonus option of having to ring Microsoft to authenticate your version of Office 2000.  This means typing some special code into your machine.   The download version of this upgrade (all 26 megabytes) does not include this special FEATURE.   This anti piracy feature came out in Australia with the retail version last year and though it works, it is generally a bit of a pain that you could do without.  So you have been warned...

http://www.microsoft.com/piracy/legal/products/office2000.asp

Downloads of Service Pack 1 from
http://officeupdate.microsoft.com/

But the good news is that if you are running Access 97 and 2000 together, Access 2000 loads a whole lot faster.

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My Favorite Spam Email last month was entitled

"BECOME BIOLOGICALLY YOUNGER IN 30 DAYS GUARANTEED"

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ONLINE SOFTWARE AND BOOK PURCHASES FROM AMAZON.COM

Try out the new electronics section at Amazon.
Click here to enter the store at places suited to
the readership of this magazine
http://vb123.com#software


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GOOD READING AND USEFUL SITES

The New Stuff in Microsoft Office 2000 Developer Tutorial

This seminar will introduce the features of Microsoft Office 2000 Developer through the creation and use of a single add-in. Along the way, you'll create an add-in that allows you to select from a list of contacts, stored in an MSDE database, to either a Word document or to an Excel spreadsheet.

Each New Stuff tutorial consists of five to seven chapters: about 100 pages of explanation, illustration, and examples. The chapters can be downloaded as Adobe Acrobat files, and if you already have the latest version of the software on your PC, you can download a self-extracting zip file of examples to test them out and view some sample code.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/training/offers/office2knewstuff/default.asp

Data Access Pages
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/techart/deploydap.htm

Free FrontPage 2000 Video Lesson - Very small video download
http://www.microsoft.com/winme/041000fro.html

Microsoft News - Its your choice
http://support.microsoft.com/support/newswatch/office.asp


A simple demonstration of using VB to mange data in an Access database
http://david90.freeservers.com/tutorial/vb5Book/hci/VB50/HTML/tutorial_12.html

Hundreds Of Free Templates For Microsoft Office Users
http://officeupdate.microsoft.com/templategallery/

Changing Access database structures remotely
http://www.comeandread.com/access/tip021.htm


AND FINALLY

I hope you enjoyed all the action from the Sydney Olympics.   If anyone is interested, I live near the location of the cycle road race and the Bondi volleyball center.   So just in case you didn't hear it enough, Aussie Aussie Aussie  Oi Oi Oi !!!



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So thanks for reading our popular newsletter.
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Garry Robinson - Software Consultant






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Published  2000-10