Guide to Info

[NetworkTrade]

This possibly belongs in the programming area, but is a general question.

Am unclear as to where one locates guide info. I may be in Access02, 03 or
07....and need to see reference info on say
DoCmd
DLookUp
etc

i.e. review the syntax, explaination of the fields, options, etc.

My searches find info scattered about. Am only talking about MS official
info; I get bits and pieces depending on whether it is in the embedded Help
vs MS's Online and not quite sure if there is a single point of reference
and/or whether there are different places to go depending on one's version of
Access....

I think it is out there but can't seem to get the right starting point...
would much welcome general advice on this and a url...tia

 

[Allen Browne]

First concept is that you get different help if you are in the main Access
window, or in the code window. For the examples, you gave, you need to open
the code window and ask for help on DoCmd. or DLookup there. The built-in
help is always the first port of call, and there are usage examples for most
of them.

Once you understand how something should work, but it's not working as you
expect, try the knowledgebase:
http://support.microsoft.com/search/?adv=1

After that, there are lots of sites providing help on specific topics. For
example, here's one on:
http://allenbrowne.com/casu-07.html

DoCmd is effectively way to programmatically do the same things that can be
done in macros. There's lots of options, of couse, so this is a big help
topic.

FWIW, my favourite links are listed here:
http://allenbrowne.com/links.html

But to actually learn Access well, you probably do need to buy a book and
actually work through the chapters and fool with the examples until you
understand what works and what doesn't work. Either that, or enrol in a
course if you learn better by interaction with others.

Access is a big field with lots to learn. There are other database products
(e.g. MySQL), other interface products (e.g. drag'n'drop dev software),
other reporting products (e.g. Crystal reports) and other programming
products (e.g. PHP/C++); but there are very few (if any) that combine all of
those into a single product the way Access does.

 

[NetworkTrade]

thanks for that - particularly the hint of being in the code window.... have
plenty of reference books; but sometimes on someone elses machine out of my
office and have a brain freeze...the memory bank isn't what it once was....so
need to quick review online a syntax or maybe something I haven't done in
several months like involving date manipulation and I don't quite remember
the syntax....and hunting around various web sites is kind of catch as catch
can....I do go to your site regularly...