Documenting Application

Hi Guys

Chuck - Tried to paste the code in a module and calling it from a command button but it did not run. Got an error on row 13 when I tried to run it directly from the onclick event of the command button.

LSM - Had a look at the software you proposed, they all look good. However, I will opt for an excel or access method at this time.

I am an environmental health officer. I created a database as a tool to monitor the licences.permits and notices that I have to monitor. Seeing that the planning section ask me to develop a database for town planning which processes 28 different types of development application each happing various stages and deadlines for each stage. I happily agreed to assist and have developed a database that records all the application, automatically change the stage of the application based on types of orrespondance issued or recieved, pop up warnings when deadlines are approaching, mail merge, notification emails to collegues, the whole shaybang. It has become so big that I am having problem figuring out why I did curtain thinks the way I did. I know this will get worse when I relook at it a year later or if I leave and someone have to come and figure it out.

I am inserting comment in the codes to assist with this but thought that there could have been an easier way to view the whole whole thing.

Cheers

You will notice at the top of the snippet that it says you must have a Reference (Tools menu => References) to the Microsoft Scripting Runtime library. This will correct your error on line 13. Also, if you compile your code (Debug menu => Compile [name of database]), you will see your syntax errors before you run your code.
-Chuck

Chuck - How do I get rid of the argument not optional error when I call the procedure

Use:
' if you want to include tables,
DocDatabase "FilePathToDatabase", True
' if you do not want to include tables,
DocDatabase "FilePathToDatabase", False
-Chuck

OK Thats generates .txt files from the form properties then gives a pop up msg "You canceled the previous operation

Not file is generated for the tables and modules  

For the record, this code saves the Forms, Reports etc as .txt files. It's certainly useful for certain tasks, but I'm not sure how useful it would be for your needs. It will not generate any sort of a cross reference, and will not tell you if/where a particular Form is used, or if/where a column in a table is used, etc etc. This is generally what is known as "documenting" a database, although perhaps the supplied code will be sufficient for your purposes.

Do you have Forms and Reports named identically? I have code similar to this for certain purposes, and I always preface the object text files with a 3 letter prefix (like "frm" for forms). So, for example:

Application.SaveAsText acForm, doc.Name, strFilePath & "frm_" & doc.Name & ".txt"

I am trying to compare this wih MS Access 2003 documentation tool.

At this point in time I am thinking of using one of the two method for storing a record of the application. The IT guy at work is a big fan of RT (http://bestpractical.com/rt) and I think that we may be able to adapt it for use as a bug tracker.

I do not have any report. I find it much more useful to mail merge the data into word document that can then be formated with all the functions of a word processor.

I have many forms, tables and codes. What a mainly need is something to remind me what goes with what and why I wrote a particular code the way I did when a look back at it sometimes next year.

Yes I know that the c-wood's code generates a series of text files. Since I used the 3 letter prefix for my object it is easy to group them and have a folder for forms, tables,query....

Cheers

I wrote that in reference to your error message ... thought perhaps you had a situation where the code was trying to write to a Text file that already existed.

<I have many forms, tables and codes. What a mainly need is something to remind me what goes with what and why I wrote a particular code the way I did when a look back at it sometimes next year.>

Commenting your code would be the simplest way to track what the major UI components are used for ... for example, for every form, include a code module, and at the top of that module state the purpose of the form, and any restrictions/limitations you may need for that.

Tables and queries are a different matter. You can't comment in those (although technically you can provide a Description), so you would instead need an external document which would describe the object and how it works in the system (i.e. what a table is supposed to store, what a query is supposed to do, etc etc). If you want to determine where each table/query is used, you'll need something like the Documenter, or one of the other tools suggested, or you'll have to do a lot of work via VBA to dig this information out. I would most certainly not trust Word to handle something like this, at least from my understanding of what you're trying to accomplish.

Thanks guys.

Just curious - what did you end up doing?