2007 Developer Extensions

I *think* this is good. While it will open the door to additional questions regarding "my MSI doesn't work" it will also open the door to a lot more people who shrink at the thought of the cost of the developer extension in previous versions. While I personally have no need for it (we deploy runtime as part of our corporate PC image) I *assume* that the hardcore developers will continue to use third party packaging applications due to their fuller set of features.

Steve

Assisted Solution

01.30.2007 at 12:48PM PST, ID: 18431072

Rank: Genius

peter57r:

Assisted Solution

01.30.2007 at 04:03PM PST, ID: 18432433

Rank: Genius

A better question: How many questions per month will we get about Runtime issues? And what will the most common complaint be?

I've polished up my crystal ball and this is what I've seen:

..... sometime in the near future, here of EE .......

Poster: I built my super-cool application and deployed it to my client with the runtime. Now when their users try to open a report to make changes they can't do this. What's up? This must be a bug, and the client is getting pretty mad because I told them they'd be able to do this ...

Expert: You can't use design features in a runtime installation. You'll have to make the changes for them and then re-deploy, or they will have to install the full version of Access on each workstation.

Poster: I don't think that's right, since I can open the report in design view. My client said they needed to do this, and I told them they could. How do I let my users open a report in Design view?

Expert: You can't do this. See the MS web site here; www.someurl.com

Poster: I don't think this applies to me, since the application was built using Access and I only used the runtime to package it. Also, like I said before, I told the client they would be able to do this. How can I get around this bug in Access?

Expert: It's not a bug, and the runtime has nothing to do with packaging the application. You can't do this with the runtime version of Access.

Poster: It is a bug, since it doesn't work on their machine, but it does work on mine. Please help, I'm a professional developer paid good money to develop this application for my client, and now they're getting really upset and I need to fix this ASAP.

Expert: It's not a bug; see the link I posted earlier and you'll notice that the site says the runtime has design features removed of disabled; therefore, like I said earlier, you can't do this.

< some time passes>

Poster: Okay, I found that the runtime has a serious bug where you can't open reports OR forms in design view. I've reported this to Microsoft, but they just want to charge me money to open a ticket. The client was forced to buy versions of Access for all their employees in order to do this, and Microsoft has refused to repay the client for this. I can't believe this. the client is pretty steamed with me, too, and they just won't understand that it's not my fault, that it's a bug in Access and I can't make Microsoft fix this.

I'm grading this a C since none of the answers were accurate and no one was able to help me with my problem.

Accepted Solution

01.31.2007 at 01:28AM PST, ID: 18434517

lol the predicted future tainted by bitter experience Scott?
At least the exe questions should decrease. ;-)
Pete cheated and gave an inevitably correct answer. (As I don't know what the question is).

Whatever people's experiences with the Install Package (I've known it to behave for the most part in the past) the licence to distribute a runtime solution was still always required.
The doors have been flung open.
Interesting times ahead. Could it even help acceptance of Access as a slightly more mainstream/acceptable solution...

("Please help, I'm a professional developer paid good money to develop this application" made me laugh and wince simultaneously ;-)

01.31.2007 at 01:57AM PST, ID: 18434640

Rank: Genius

peter57r:

What a brilliant post Scott - it sounds so real- I' m bookmarking it so it's handy when needed!

Pete

Hi Leigh....

01.31.2007 at 02:34AM PST, ID: 18434780

Rank: Genius

<At least the exe questions should decrease. ;-)>

True ...

<("Please help, I'm a professional developer paid good money to develop this application" made me laugh and wince simultaneously ;-)>

I'm constantly amazed at the number of people who claim to have "clients" for which they're performing paid work, and the level of experience which is evident in many of their questions. That's not to say that true professional devs never need help, since we all get stuck sometimes, but many of the questions by these "pros" point to a decided lack of basic knowledge ... be kinda like hiring me to build a car ... I could probably hack something together that would move on it's own, but you can bet it wouldn't be reliable, and if the owner ever tried to change the radio they'd have to rewire the whole electrical system ...

01.31.2007 at 03:17AM PST, ID: 18434940

Were I hired to build a car... umm I think I'd subcontract ;-)
To demolish one? Ohhh yes - fun! Stress relief! :-)

One of the issues with why Access doesn't gain acceptance as a viable solution among certain corners of the IT industry is that they are exposed to non-professional examples. The product of noobie or under skilled developer efforts - and this colours their opinion of what can be achieved. (Then the inevitable Chinese whispers occurs and bandwagon jumping of "what they've heard" - which is almost invariably wrong).

I just wonder if a spate of umm... non-professionally created Access applications distributed freely (/ willy nilly) might serve to re-enforce that misconception that exists.
The act of having to buy the extensions will have inevitably put many off from trying their hand at it in the past.

Yes - they can always download a free version of VB.Net. But I reckon punters are less likely to do that to have a go at developing than to just distribute what they've quickly knocked up in Access.
(Besides - damaging .Net's reputation wouldn't be possible. Someone of mediocre ability could use it churn out a POS application but the IT manager would likely still gyrate disturbingly upon receipt of it).

Still though. I think it's a positive move. An attempt to send out the right signals.
(Hopefully).

01.31.2007 at 03:24AM PST, ID: 18434957

Rank: Genius

peter57r:

'be kinda like hiring me to build a car ..'

I used this argument a couple of days ago to justify fees - the potential client said that he could get a young lad for 5 pounds an hour to do a database - and i offered to fix his car for the same rate.

( well it wasn't an exciting prospect anyway...)

Pete

Assisted Solution

01.31.2007 at 03:41AM PST, ID: 18435012

Rank: Genius

I can see some questions from the intermediate group ... I just want to add (fill in the blank)_ top the deployment, and inevitably it will ber something the packager does not do out of the box and then instead of a resounding "go get installsheild, wyse, combine with sage key) we will see a fair amount to ... here's the vbscript you need to run on the first launch of your app, or even build the "run once" into the app itself, maybe an ini file would handle it. So how well do we think the runtime is really going to work on PCs with multiple versions of Access anyway ... I doubt M$ licensed from Sage Key all the registy mumbo-jumbo fixups.

<42> ... nice answer Pete ... I remember the original Q for that answer :-)

Assisted Solution

01.31.2007 at 05:25AM PST, ID: 18435531

Rank: Genius

<One of the issues with why Access doesn't gain acceptance as a viable solution among certain corners of the IT industry is that they are exposed to non-professional examples.>

This has been my biggest problem with the clients I deal with. Most of my apps are used in the aerospace industry, and I've been having some hassles trying to get my project management app in regular use at the big government funded aerospace centers. On some projects the IT dept just installs it and goes about their merry way, having no real clue that it's written in Access ... but on most the IT squad has a hissy fit as soon as you mention the word Access, and invariably will relate tales of considerable woe in regards to "some Access application that Larry over in Accounting built that was always crashing or cloggin the network or blah blah blah" ... no matter that Larry has no training, is not a full time developer, or that the app was originally intended to be run on Larry's workstation only.

<So how well do we think the runtime is really going to work on PCs with multiple versions of Access anyway ... I doubt M$ licensed from Sage Key all the registy mumbo-jumbo fixups.>

That's gonna be the other big issue, I believe. I still remember the hell I went through the first time I deployed a runtime without Sagekey ... fortunately I had a strong IT department to work with, and the issue was contained to less than a dozen machines which needed to be updated anyway so I was able to get the issue resolved pretty quickly (but not without damage to my rep). In most cases developers won't have this luxury, they'll be at the mercy of the onsite guru (who just happened to take a 2 hour Introduction To Access 97 course 8 years ago) who has absolutely no clue what you mean when you say "Open the registry editor" ...

Assisted Solution

02.05.2007 at 04:02AM PST, ID: 18467159

OK, can sombody help me please?
How the hell do you split an accept of a question?

Any advice appreciated as I'm a bit of a Noob here at EE. :-S

02.05.2007 at 04:05AM PST, ID: 18467170

Rank: Genius

lol ... AFAIK ... you enter the points split per question (shoukld be a box to the far right of each suggestion?) but you only accept one of them :-)

02.05.2007 at 04:09AM PST, ID: 18467182

Hmmm...
There aren't any boxes - only an Accept button on each suggestion all by itself :-(

Dayum - I've broken EE.

02.05.2007 at 04:19AM PST, ID: 18467217

Rank: Genius

Are you using the new EE UI yet?

Sorry Leigh ... I only remeber that splitting is confusing ...

maybe click accept on one of them and then you get a bunch more that say assist? The only thing i really remeber is you can accept your own :-)

02.05.2007 at 06:13AM PST, ID: 18467809

Rank: Genius

The easiest way is to just give me all the points <g>.

02.05.2007 at 06:26AM PST, ID: 18467909

Yeah asking questions sucks.

Speaking of points - heh look at we four. All segmented together in the overall list. Spooky that we all featured in this Q.

I've ventured over to the New site several times.
But the slowness destroys all remaining energy for answering.
Speed it up EE - and get the expert skin working! Yoinks!

02.05.2007 at 06:41AM PST, ID: 18468030

Rank: Genius

RE: The new site - so far I've been rather unimpressed with it, but truthfully I can take it or leave it. From other posts regarding the new site, once it's moved to the "live" servers it's supposed to be faster.

02.05.2007 at 06:58AM PST, ID: 18468161

Yay!! (I swear that link wasn't there earlier :-S)

I'd read that about the live servers too. It'll have to be a *big* difference for me to bother.
I find the layout too spaced out too. The comments on questions don't flow as nicely.
We'll see what the expert skin offers (one day).

Cheers for the comments anyway guys.

02.05.2007 at 07:00AM PST, ID: 18468182

Rank: Genius