Data Access Pages - Too limited

[Stapes]

Hi

I have a client who requested a database to deal with Bookings for his
holiday cottages. He also has a website which displays the prices &
availabilty of the cottages. At the moment, when he gets a booking, he
has to go manually amend his webpage to show that the cottage has now
been booked for the given period.
I created a form that looked exactly like his website. Then, on the
page that processes customers booking forms, as soon as he confirms
the booking, the availabilty property of the cottage is changed from
available to booked.
I kinda hoped I would be able to use this in place of his website, but
no, you can't make Data Access Pages from a Form. What a pain!
So, I compromised. Created a Data Access Page from a couple of queries
that does the trick, but nothing like as neat as my form. It only
displays one date at a time, instead of seeing the whole year at a
glance. Then, when you go to the Next date, the data dissapears and
you have to click on the Expand/Collapse control. There is a setting
to have it permanently expanded, but it won't let me do that either,
because it is the lowest level of grouping.
What a dissapointing pile of poo.

Stapes

 

[scubadiver]

Access is a static application. For what you want I guess you would need a
server based database application that can update the website.

 

[Norman Yuan]

Since your client want to show his information on the Internet/web, you need
to learn some web application technology. MS Access is not for a web app, at
least its front end user interface (Forms, Reports) cannot be used for web
application. Theoretically, Data Access Page is kind of web application and
it can be designed to suit you rather simple need (not just a record per
page for sure). However, since it is tied to Access too close and other
shortcomes, compare to vastly used different web technologies (ASP,
ASP.NET...) it is so limited that virtually no one sieriouly uses it or
should consider to use it for a web application.

Your best bet would be to develop a web application with a technology that
you can work with, and use the Access database's backend structure as data
source (mainly tables, maybe some queries, forget forms/reports). If you
expect there is rather high traffic, then forget Access altogether.

 

[Larry Linson]

What a dissapointing pile of poo.

That is a strong statement, but many people found DAP too limited to be of
real use and it was not well-received nor well-adopted. That is why it is
"deprecated" in Access 2007... you can run existing DAPs, but you can't
create nor modify them in Access 2007.

As best I can translate, "deprecated" is Microsoftese for "Hold your nose
when you get anywhere close to this." So maybe your statement is accurate
as well as "strong."

Larry Linson
Microsoft Access MVP

 

[Tony Wickernark]

DAP are actually quite nice.

I usually embed them in the middle of an ASP page and also do a whole ton of
DHTML

do you know how to write webpages?

if you don't then you should go out and learn dreamweaver; it is 100 times
better than the MS web design paradigm

 

[Tom Wimpernads]

Norman

I think that you're full of crap

I've used ADP and DAP combined-- it's a fantastic combination.
There isn't another web development environment in the whole wide world
where you can sort and filter -- ON THE CLIENT SIDE

No, I wouldn't recccomend DAP for beginner web developers.
But uh.. it's a great combo

 

[Larry Linson]

Norman

I think that you're full of crap

I've used ADP and DAP combined-- it's a fantastic combination.
There isn't another web development environment in the whole wide world
where you can sort and filter -- ON THE CLIENT SIDE

No, I wouldn't recccomend DAP for beginner web developers.
But uh.. it's a great combo

Aaron, we know it's you...

Interestingly, it was such a great combo that DAP was not only 'deprecated'
but the ability to create and maintain DAPs was removed from Access 2007,
although it still has the functionality to execute/use a DAP created in an
earlier version. So, if you choose to follow aaron's advice, whatever name
he's using, be sure to retain the earlier version of Access on at least one
machine, in case you need to maintain or enhance the old DAP.

Larry Linson
Microsoft Access MVP

 

[PFC Sadr]

Don't you dare talk about WHY things are depecrated.

You're not the one making the decisions.

DAPs were and are the most powerful web tool in the whole wide world.
But they're a little bit advanced-- most web developers need to learn
an object or two and then they can apply DHTML to a DAP with ease.

And for the record-- Office Web Components? I've been using OWC every
day of my life since 2000 came out; because it's the best tool for
REPORTING... using Analysis Services.

And I've seen a written guarantee from Microsoft that OWC will be
supported until the end of 2013 AT LEAST.


Sorry-- but you should really learn to evaluate products for
yourself-- instead of listening to Michael Kaplan.


DAP is awesome
ADP is awesome.

DAP on top of ADP is awesome.


it's pretty straightforward math; kids

If it's a failure in the market place-- it's because it was TOO
COMPLEX not because it wasn't powerful enough

 

[James A. Fortune]

DAP on top of ADP is awesome.


it's pretty straightforward math; kids

If it's a failure in the market place-- it's because it was TOO
COMPLEX not because it wasn't powerful enough

It's a failure in the "marketing" place . Maybe DAP's had too much
potential. Microsoft could have kept DAP's in Access and made them work
wonderfully. My theory is that they chose to remove DAP's from Access
so that similar functionality in SharePoint would not face a reasonable
alternative. I welcome other theories about the fate of DAP's in Access.

James A. Fortune
(e-mail address removed)