VB Front End Access BackEnd

  • Thread starter Thread starter DS
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DS

What is meant by VB Front End and Access Back End?
Can you convert Access forms to VB?
Thanks
DS
 
Not really. Tony Toews lists some third part products that purport to be
able to do that at http://www.granite.ab.ca/access/accesstovb.htm but most
people agree that they do an incomplete job at best. There are simply too
many differences between the controls available on forms in Access and VB.

However, that doesn't mean that you can't use a VB program to communicate
with a Jet database.
 
DS said:
What is meant by VB Front End and Access Back End?
Can you convert Access forms to VB?
Thanks
DS
Click to expand...

Well, do note that the programming language in ms-access is what we call
VBA. This programming language for purposes is the SAME language as VB6, but
we have a different forms model.

A good development practice is ms-access is to split the database into two
parts. The so called Front End has all of the forms, reports, and VB code.
The back end is simply a mdb file shared on a server/file share.

So, you "move out" all of the code, and application part of a ms-access mdb
file. This new application part is then installed on each computer.

you can also do this split, and re-write the application part in VB and
place that on each computer (not a lot of advantages of doing this in most
cases).
 
Albert said:
Well, do note that the programming language in ms-access is what we call
VBA. This programming language for purposes is the SAME language as VB6, but
we have a different forms model.

A good development practice is ms-access is to split the database into two
parts. The so called Front End has all of the forms, reports, and VB code.
The back end is simply a mdb file shared on a server/file share.

So, you "move out" all of the code, and application part of a ms-access mdb
file. This new application part is then installed on each computer.

you can also do this split, and re-write the application part in VB and
place that on each computer (not a lot of advantages of doing this in most
cases).
Click to expand...
Thanks Albert. So I guess you as you say the reports are run from VB.
That means you lose Access great reporting?
Thanks
DS
 
Douglas said:
Not really. Tony Toews lists some third part products that purport to be
able to do that at http://www.granite.ab.ca/access/accesstovb.htm but most
people agree that they do an incomplete job at best. There are simply too
many differences between the controls available on forms in Access and VB.

However, that doesn't mean that you can't use a VB program to communicate
with a Jet database.
Click to expand...
Thanks Doug...I'm trying to weigh the Pros and Cons here.
DS
 
The pros/cons in my view:

VB:

Pro
Control arrays/create controls at runtime
Lighter weight app...does not require msaccess retail/runtime
More ActiveX components available for use in your app...possibly
richer UI

Con
Considerable additional cost to implement similar functionality to
Access (if possible at all)
Report tools suck

Access

Pro
Robust data controls
Rapid development... in some cases, many orders of magnitude more so
than VB...even if the VB developer is an expert
Report tools are excellent
If user has retail version of Access, they can create their own
queries/reports pretty easily.
Con
See VB Pro

The biggest factor favoring Access in my mind is rapid development. The
difference in cost to develop a given app is usually pretty huge.
 
Paul said:
The pros/cons in my view:

VB:

Pro
Control arrays/create controls at runtime
Lighter weight app...does not require msaccess retail/runtime
More ActiveX components available for use in your app...possibly
richer UI

Con
Considerable additional cost to implement similar functionality to
Access (if possible at all)
Report tools suck

Access

Pro
Robust data controls
Rapid development... in some cases, many orders of magnitude more so
than VB...even if the VB developer is an expert
Report tools are excellent
If user has retail version of Access, they can create their own
queries/reports pretty easily.
Con
See VB Pro

The biggest factor favoring Access in my mind is rapid development. The
difference in cost to develop a given app is usually pretty huge.
Click to expand...
Thanks, that was very informative. Ithink I'll stick with Access. I
was thinking about VB because I Dongle that I bought and I might have to
use VB as a shell to house Access....(Make Sense?) Also I'd like to get
rid of the Access Title Bar that is always there.
Thanks for the info and the response.
DS
 
Thanks Albert. So I guess you as you say the reports are run from VB.
That means you lose Access great reporting?
Thanks
DS
Click to expand...

Yes, that is correct. You got some great advice here from other posters. As
I mentioned, you do want to split the ms-access into two parts, and you
don't need to re-write any code to do this. This split approach thus gives
you a development environment where you have the program part, and a data
file part (just live VB, or most systems).

You can read about splitting here:
http://www.granite.ab.ca/access/splitapp.htm
 
Albert said:
Yes, that is correct. You got some great advice here from other posters. As
I mentioned, you do want to split the ms-access into two parts, and you
don't need to re-write any code to do this. This split approach thus gives
you a development environment where you have the program part, and a data
file part (just live VB, or most systems).

You can read about splitting here:
http://www.granite.ab.ca/access/splitapp.htm
Click to expand...
Thank You Again!
DS
 
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