Anyone that has ever created hyperlinks within a database, or stored file paths and then tried using the Application.FollowHyperlink method to open them has no doubt come across a security warning, such as:
Whether there is genuine cause for concern, such a message is quite alarming for end-users and can cause them to do all sorts of things (including calling IT stating they have a virus – true story).
Many of you are aware of my previous article about linking to Excel spreadsheets
In the section entitled ‘A Workaround For Linked Tables’ I provided some VBA code to change the necessary connection property.
Knowing that not everyone is comfortable with VBA, I decided to quickly put together a simple form that you can import directly into any database and use it to configure the connection property for you so you don’t need to know a thing about VBA!
It’s a simple import and use solution.
Over the years, I’ve posted all sorts of code samples using WMI to get all sort of information from a PC, things like:
and many, many more!
For fun, I put together a more generalized, what I’ve deemed ‘WMI Explorer’ code. Basically, you pick the WMI NameSpace, and Class and then you can view all the associated properties. I’ve even added the ability to export the results to Excel.
I’ve always avoided using Hyperlinks. There are a number of reasons, but my main complaints are
You can find posts and videos going into depth as to why Access Hyperlink fields are less than ideal.
Personally, just like attachments, most experienced developers prefer to simply store hyperlinks as plain text and automate them using simple VBA (Application.FollowHyperlink).
Okay, back to Hyperlinks. Regardless of my personal views, the simple reality is that many people still use them and so I thought I’d touch upon them briefly today to hopefully clarify a couple things about them.
One of the most common things that all Access developers do is loop through recordsets to read them, edit them, …
I thought I’d give a few code samples for those of you that are just starting off.
Today, I thought I’d touch upon RTF (Rich Text Field(s)).
If you’ve looked over my
you’ll know I’m not a huge fan of RTF.
Why?
Well, RTF is simply a crippled implementation of proper HTML. I’ve always thought that if you’re going to do something, then do it properly or don’t do it at all! In this instance, that would mean implementing proper HTML, but that’s obviously not the view Microsoft takes of things!!!
At the time of writing my Improved HTML article, RTF could not do basic HTML things like:
That’s neither here or there for today’s subject matter though.
I know many people use RTF because it is convenient, so I thought I’d cover a couple quick issues/questions that sometimes come up in forums.
If you’ve read my posts:
I’ve tried to emphasize the fact that Reserved Words and Special Characters were to be avoided at all cost.
Both Reserved Words and Special Characters simply cause all sorts of extra headaches (in, amongst other things, Queries & VBA) and can lead to odd and unexplainable behaviors from the database itself.
My previous article explored using plain SQL to connect and work with other Access databases:
This time, I thought I’d show you how you can create SELECT statements that can bind directly to an Excel Workbook to work with the data without the need of Linked Table or advanced VBA coding.
Everyone knows that we can create linked table to external databases, but did you know you can actually directly query another database without first setting up a linked table?
It is actually possible to pass along the necessary information directly in the SQL Statement to establish a connection, even to a secured database file.
So, let’s explore how this is done.
Here’s something I dabbled with years ago, but never truly needed in any way and decided to revisit to help with accessibility to a database I was working on. What am I ‘talking’ about, SAPI (Microsoft Speech API) automation! Using VBA to narrate text.
Why? Well, by narrating content you can help users with poor vision, allow users to do other things while still being able to ingest content by simply listening, and so on.