MS-Access

[Joen40]

Is it possible to incorporate the .Net Framework into MS-Access instead of
using the VBA Language? I don’t know if I am asking the right question. In
Visual Studio 2005, you have the development add-Ins for Word and Excel. Do
you have anything for MS-Access? Instead of using the VBA routine can I use
Visual Basic.Net to code into MS-Access as a VBA Project, or can I even write
MS-Access applications in Visual Studio 2005? I have not seen any support or
talk about Access in part of Visual Studio 2005. Is there a reason for this?

 

[Cindy M -WordMVP-]

Hi =?Utf-8?B?Sm9lbjQw?=,

Is it possible to incorporate the .Net Framework into MS-Access instead of
using the VBA Language? I don’t know if I am asking the right question. In
Visual Studio 2005, you have the development add-Ins for Word and Excel. Do
you have anything for MS-Access? Instead of using the VBA routine can I use
Visual Basic.Net to code into MS-Access as a VBA Project, or can I even write
MS-Access applications in Visual Studio 2005? I have not seen any support or
talk about Access in part of Visual Studio 2005. Is there a reason for this?

Well, in general terms, these days Access is considered a front-end for viewing
data in a store such as SQL-Server, or as a tool for the desktop. The newest
version of Visual Studio (2005) doesn't even provide a direct link to Access
sources (at least it didn't in the course I attended). That's how much the .NET
folks consider Access a "useful" database.

No Office application currently contains anything other than a traditional VB
language. One hears about "VSTA" (Visual Studio for Applications), but it's not
being incorporated in any of the "core" Office applications even in the new
Office version - 2007 - that's currently in beta. These Office applications are
COM, so there are significant obstacles to trying to incorporate managed code in
their "world-view"

You ought to be able to link to the data in an Access DB (although in 2005 you
might have to set up the connection manually). And you can display the data in a
Windows Form created using a .NET application. You could even automate the
Access object model to generate or print reports, if you wanted to.

but any code you write IN Access, to be part of the *mdb file and used in
Access, must be VBA.

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 8 2004)
http://www.word.mvps.org

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[TC]

Butting in here (cos I can not see the original post):

OP, be aware that Access is really two different things: Access itself,
which is the interactive development environment (forms, reports,
modules etc.); and "MS Jet", which is the actual database engine. It is
Jet - not Access - which stores all the data, creates & manages
indexes, interprets & executes SQL statements, & so on.

So when people ask "Can I use Access from 'x'?", it's often not clear
whether they want to use the development features of Access (forms,
reports etc.), or the data storage features of Jet (tables, queries
etc.).

By default, Access & Jet are so well integrated, that many people never
know that there are two products working togethe behind the scenes. But
there are!

HTH,
TC (MVP- Access)
http://tc2.atspace.com