Import custom form into a standard application

[Guest]

I have an application running on many installations. All installations are
the same except for one custom made form.

Can I somehow have that one custom form detached from my application?

I would want the form to be available in the application like a normal form
- i.e. I would want to be able to have pop-up forms displayed on top of the
form etc.

Now I am using Access2K. Would this be possible in 2003 or the version
soon-to-be-released?

 

[John Vinson]

I have an application running on many installations. All installations are
the same except for one custom made form.

Can I somehow have that one custom form detached from my application?

I would want the form to be available in the application like a normal form
- i.e. I would want to be able to have pop-up forms displayed on top of the
form etc.

Now I am using Access2K. Would this be possible in 2003 or the version
soon-to-be-released?

No.

If by "a normal form" you mean a Visual Basic Form, just be aware that
Access Forms are very different. They exist only within the confines
of an Access database.

You can, of course, write a Visual Basic application with any forms
you like, referencing a JET (or SQL) database - which can also be
referenced by an Access database.

John W. Vinson[MVP]

 

[Guest]

To clarify -
My application is entirely made in Access2K.
It consists of a front-end and a data back-end.
The front-end has 25 forms.
One of these forms are specific to the installation, so if I make changes to
my application I have to make a new version for every specific installation,
because I have to copy the specific form into the general mdb-file and make a
specific mdb for every installation.

If I could have the one specific form detached from the general application,
an update would just be to install the changed general application on all
installations as the specific form would still be as before.

So I am looking for a modular way of handling this "specific form issue".

 

[John Vinson]

To clarify -
My application is entirely made in Access2K.
It consists of a front-end and a data back-end.
The front-end has 25 forms.
One of these forms are specific to the installation, so if I make changes to
my application I have to make a new version for every specific installation,
because I have to copy the specific form into the general mdb-file and make a
specific mdb for every installation.

If I could have the one specific form detached from the general application,
an update would just be to install the changed general application on all
installations as the specific form would still be as before.

So I am looking for a modular way of handling this "specific form issue".

I haven't tried this, but one possibility would be to use a Library
database. Each user would have the shared frontend and a customized
..mda library file. As I say - not sure it will work for forms!

John W. Vinson[MVP]

 

[Guest]

Could be what I am looking for. But I cant find anything in the Access Help.
What is the magic search word?

Or if you have any other directions on where to look?

 

[John Vinson]

Could be what I am looking for. But I cant find anything in the Access Help.
What is the magic search word?

Alas, I was mistaken. Access Libraries will let you store VBA code
which can be called from other databases, but not Forms. Sorry I led
you dwon the wrong track!

You may be able to use the undocumented SafeAsText and LoadFromText
functions to ease the burden. Each user will still need a customized
frontend, but you can send the custom form just as a text file. To
create it use

Application.SaveAsText acForm, "NameOfTheForm", "K:\Path\MyForm.txt"

in code in a database containing the form; then (perhaps in a one-time
startup code) use Application.LoadFromText with the same syntax.

John W. Vinson[MVP]