Customer Reviews

Access 2000 Developer's Handbook Volume 1: Desktop Edition

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The Access 2000 Developers Handbook is an essential resource for developing quality applications in Microsoft Access. It is the fourth book in the series, with equivalents written for each version of Access starting with Version 2.0, and all of them sit right next to each other on my bookshelf. The code included with the book's companion CD is worth the cover price alone! Although the book specifically targets Microsoft Access, it easily ports to Visual Basic and Active Server Pages applications.

The book contains thousands of lines of highly portable, usable and bug free code. The code included is more than just sample code; it is highly optimized, fully functional and rapidly incorporated into your project. Some outstanding examples include popup calendar and calculator controls, a Text File class which makes it simple to read, write and manipulate text files, form scaling code, Common File Dialog and Office File Open/Close Dialog wrappers, excellent automation samples including manipulating Outlook to generate time reports, and Word to print an invoice. Many of the code samples literally paste straight into the Visual Basic development environment with no modification, and have worked bug free in my applications for quite some time. Additionally, where appropriate, all code included with the Access 2000 Developers Handbook has been incorporated into class modules, which further makes it simple to incorporate into your projects.

The book also has some of the best information about relational database design, SQL syntax and, much more. Microsoft Access encompasses many new technologies, and this book does the best job of providing a navigational guide through them to enable its readers to become high quality, proficient developers. Access Developers can find work developing applications without reading this book, but it isn't a good idea!

If you buy only one book for Access 2000, the Access 2000 Developers Handbook should be the one.

As the word 'Developer' should imply, this book is not for MS Access beginners, but once you qualify yourself as 'intermediate' or better, you will feel right at home. Very little of this book is devoted to boring you with rehashes of stuff in the help file (as most other books seem to do). There is a great deal of depth and insight into areas that apply to everyday usage, complex projects, and solutions to many problems MS tends to ignore version after version.

The writing is excellent and they have a web site devoted to updates, errata and such which is very helpful. Chapters 10, 14 and 15 have had an extremely positive impact on the quality and usability of my projects in MS Access as well as VBA and Visual Basic.

Many of the code samples are outstanding and written so that you can just drop them in to your projects with no modifications. Many of them are done so well they seem like natural extensions to MS Access (stuff MS 'should' have included in the 1st place).

Complaints? None. Well, okay, I do have 1 minor complaint. They devoted almost 30 pages to The Office Assistant. IMHO these pages and the Office Assistant itself are a complete waste.

This book and its previous versions are the best money I have ever spent. They continue to save me hundreds of hours while adding reliability and capability to all my projects. Highly recommended!

I purchased the Access 97 Developer's Handbook and was very impressed with the content. With it my skills in VB and in Access were greatly boosted. When I purchased Office 2000 I went ahead and purchased Access 2000 Developer's Handbook, not really expecting alot of new content - just updated content, which I felt I needed.

This book covers all of the Ins/Outs of Access programming. While it might be a bit much for an absolute beginner who has no prior programming skills, it is a good book for anyone who intends to do a significant amont of work in Access. This book has basic information as well as some rather advanced concepts and techniques. All topics are presented clearly and with good examples.

There is even a touch of humor interspersed throughout the text. Be sure to look for the discussion of the evolution of COM.

In comparison to the earlier version of book, the same general topics are covered but many of the solutions are even better than they were in the Access 97 Handbook. There are many examples of class modules and collections. The examples themselves are useful (I love the TaggedValues class - I only wish I had thought of it myself)and they provide a good jump off point for someone who wants to build his own class modules.

I would definately recommend this book to anyone using Access 2000, whether or not you already have the earlier version.

This book is for someone who has used Access long enough to know what they want to do and generally how they want to do it, but not the particulars of what is and isn't possible in implementation. It is everything but an introduction. Whether you want to use obscure, proprietary SQL statements like UNION or directly control the printer, this book will provide the information. The one thing the book is not, and was not intended to be, is an introduction. If you've never used Access or you've only used it for data entry, spend several weeks reading the built-in help and mastering the basics before you open this book (or even decide that you need it).

I particularly liked the VBA examples. Until this book, I knew nothing about any VB language, but had thorough knowledge of lower-level languages like C++ and Java. After working with the examples, I am very comfortable with VBA. The book is not intended to be an introduction to VBA, but if you're an experienced programmer, you should be able to pick it up from the examples and any notes you take; an additional book isn't necessary for the level of understanding needed to use VBA with Access.

Then pick up this book and confirm it! I'll bet you there are still tips and tricks that you can learn and this book will show them to you. This book definitely falls under the Intermediate-Advanced Access 2000 users category. Those new to Access should go to the Access Bible, ISBN 0764532863.

This book still covers mostly design environment topics, like advanced reporting & forms, SQL, using ADO code to loop through recordsets, VBA tricks, working with other Office apps. If you are looking for advanced Access info like migrating to SQL Server, optimizing multiuser performance or setup/deployment of an application, look at Volume 2 ISBN 0782123724.

I can't even get in to the level of detail this book provides, so here are just a few examples of tips/tricks I found useful in my corporate development:

1. Building an Append query in Access that actually hits an external Excel file.
2. Using a report's NoData event to display a message that there is no data in a report rather than returning or printing a blank report.
3. Sorting & grouping a report on the fly by asking the user how they want to group or sort, then do it with code.
4. An incredible section on how to dynamically optimize the application's screen resolution based on the user's screen size, complete with code you can paste and use!

There are plenty more that I could add but I assume you get the picture! If you are very comfortable with Access, you need this book to complete your library and call yourself an Access Master!

I purchased this book on the recommendation of our local Access SIG group leader. He spoke highly of authors' Access 97 Handbook. I am new to Access and VBA. I was anxious to come up to speed quickly. I first purchased "Sams Teach Yourself Microsoft Access 2000 in 21 days" by Paul Cassel and Pamela Palmer. That book put me on the right path. After almost completing that book, I started tackling some complex automation projects. This book accelerated my learning to an amazing degree. This handbook explains the ADO Model, the Object Model and Automation very clearly and logically. The examples are excellent and the companion CD is really useful.

The only topic this book does not cover is the DDE (Dynamic Data Exchange). On the other hand, after reading the book, I realized that the DDE is not necessary for automation since the Object Model is more powerful and efficient.

I recommend this book to anyone who has the need to use VBA for automation and for extending the standard capability of Access 2000.

This book is simply fabulous. In fact both Volumes 1 and 2 are brilliant. If you need accurate, detailed, and to-the-point information about Microsoft Access then this is the only way to go.

The Developer's Handbook has everything anyone could ever need to know about Access. Granted, it is not for Access beginners, but if you have a handle on tables, forms, queries, and reports, and you aren't afraid to get into a little bit of VBA, (i.e. if you're not in the market for "Access for Dummies" or "Access in 24 Hours") then skip the books for intermediate users, such as the completely inadequate Access Bible, and get the Developer's Handbook.

Part of my job is developing Access databases for small businesses and I use this book on a daily basis. I have yet to find a single feature in Access that this book does not cover. And if you're trying to do something with Access that it doesn't readily perform, chances are this book will tell you exactly how to do it, or it will provide a work-around for the problem you are facing.

Do yourself a favour: don't waste your time buying other Access books. Get the Developer's Handbook and you'll save hours of frustration.

I bought the Access Bible 2000 as a tutorial, however, I still felt not enough, and I proceeded to buy this book. This is great. I'm a intermediate VB coder, but a professional Access developer now. Thank you very much for putting this book on the market. Without it, I'd be an idiot. If you haven't learnt or know little about Access, I'd highly recommend you buy Access 2000 Bible first, then this wonderful treasure.

If you have the (mis)fortune to fall into the world of Access development as I did, you cannot go wrong with this book. I've been working with Access since version 2.0, and using the ADH since their 97 version. It's not really for an Access beginner, of course, but it can teach you everything you need to know to go from being an intermediate user to being a power developer, in really CLEAR language, and with tons of really reusable answers. I've looked at other Access books, used a few in my time, and they just read like books about Access. This gives you answers.

The series of Developers handbooks by Litwin, Getz & Gilbert are No 1 Best sellers for one reason. They are the definitive Access Bible for both novice and professional Access developers. My battered and torn Access 97 developers Handbooks is testament to the number of times I re-read this book and the Access 2000 edition is even better. Both are now part of my "must have" travel accessories for wherever I contract. Whether you are a beginner starting out with access or a seasoned programmer in Access, there is always something new to be gained from these information packed pages. I recommend this book to my fellow Access developers, and I also recommend it to you.