Commercial release Newbie

[Karen]

If my following question is better asked in another group, feel free to
point me to the applicable group.

As background, I've been working for the past two years developing custom
Access apps for small businesses. Because the app was custom designed and
developed for individual customers it was easy to accommodate the customer's
particular computer/software configurations.

One customer, however, was very pleased with his app and felt it could be
distributed to others in his particular line of work. He has funded the
further development necessary to make the app a 'product'. We have been
distributing the app to a few of his colleagues in a 'Beta' sense and have
added some features as a result of the feedback we've received.

In the application, several different reports are available to the user.
These reports open Word. My VBA code opens Word, creates a document based
on a Word template, unprotects the Word document to push info from the
database then protects the document so only certain sections can be edited
by the user.

The Beta installations have all been on systems with XP Pro and Word 2003.
Yesterday, we installed the app on a system running XP Home and Word 2002.
When a report is attempted, Access throws an error message that the Word
document cannot be 'unprotected' as it already is 'unprotected'.

My question is 'Could this be because we're using XP Home vice XP Pro or
because we're using Word 2002 vice Word 2003?

As a newbie to developing a commercial release, any suggestions for how I
might find some resource to help me through these sort of global issues?

I know this is a lot but I really want to build a useful app and my
experience level is clearly not up to this last stretch.

 

[Alex Ivanov]

My guess is that it's a bug in your code. Probably you are trying to
unprotect a wrong document, not the one you expected (perhaps a blank
document created unintentionally or a document already being opened manually
by the user).
Or perhaps your template is not protected indeed...
The best way to deal with such situation is jump to debug mode and see what
the document really is. If Word is not visible at the time of error, make it
visible (From immediate window issue a command like
yourdoc.application.visible=true).
Then select the the doc, like yourdoc.range.select; this would give you a
visible indicator that you are working with right doc. And you may have your
code to check if the document is protected before trying to unprotect it.

HTH
Alex.

 

[Karen]

Hi Alex,

I don't think I was clear. The app is working with five other 'Beta' users
and all, including the newest tester, used the same install. The only
difference with the newest tester is that his system is XP Home and Word
2002 vice XP Pro and Word 2003. Also, I've distributed these 'Beta' apps as
..mde front-ends with .mdb backends so the code is not available to the User
and it works perfectly well on my system.

I'm not really looking for any sort of troubleshooting for this issue as
much as I realize that I just don't have the depth of knowledge to even
address these 'What the heck' kind of problems. So, my question is what's
the best resource or how do I find a resource to help a newbie through these
last steps towards a commercial release?

By the way, over these two year's I've accumulated lots of books that I use
for reference but there's a basic path that no one talks about. I mean, was
it a bad idea to use Word for these reports? How do I ensure that the app
will work with, let's say, Word 2000, Word 2002, Word 2003. Is there some
difference between XP Pro and XP Home that I should have been aware of?
Things like that.

--
Karen

My guess is that it's a bug in your code. Probably you are trying to
unprotect a wrong document, not the one you expected (perhaps a blank
document created unintentionally or a document already being opened
manually
by the user).
Or perhaps your template is not protected indeed...
The best way to deal with such situation is jump to debug mode and see
what
the document really is. If Word is not visible at the time of error, make
it
visible (From immediate window issue a command like
yourdoc.application.visible=true).
Then select the the doc, like yourdoc.range.select; this would give you a
visible indicator that you are working with right doc. And you may have
your
code to check if the document is protected before trying to unprotect it.

HTH
Alex.

 

[Tham Pek Yoong]

Sorry,I think I can't help u !

 

[Tham Pek Yoong]

sorry,I can't help u !

 

[John Nurick]

Hi Karen,

Like Alex's, my first assumption would be that there was a bug in my
code, perhaps relating to subtle differences between Word 2002 and 2003
(which alas do exist).

What versions of Access are involved on the various machines? Which
version did you use to create the mde front end? Are you using early or
late binding to automate Word?

For troubleshooting, I'd install an mdb version of the front end on the
"different" machine (or if distance to the client's colleague prohibits
this, set up a computer for myself with the same OS and Office app
versions and service packs). It's then possible to step through the code
and find out exactly the circumstances in which the error message is
being generated.

Alternatively create a "debugging" version of the mde, with code in the
suspect procedure(s) that double-checks everything and writes a detailed
log file that you can examine back home.

 

[Karen]

Hi John,

My app uses the Access runtime and was developed in Access 2003. I use late
binding thinking that was actually the safer way to go. I'll look into the
feasibility of having that Beta member use the .mdb as well your other
suggestions. Thanks very much.

 

[John Nurick]

Hi Karen,

Late binding's definitely safer. But I have a nasty feeling that
document protection changed slightly between Word 2002 and 2003, in
which case late binding wouldn't necessarily help. If you go to Google
advanced group search you may find clues in microsoft.public.word.* .
Otherwise, post in a Word newsgroup.