Exploring the Access 2010 Interface

This excerpt, extracted from Microsoft Access 2010 Inside Out packs hundreds of time-saving solutions, troubleshooting tips, and workarounds, all in concise, fast-answer format.

Microsoft Access 2010 Inside Out ByJeff Conrad, John Viescas Publisher:Microsoft Press Released:August 2010 Pages:1488

Exploring the Access 2010 Interface Table of Contents

• Opening Access for the First Time

• Getting Started with Access 2010

• Understanding Content Security

• Understanding the Office Fluent Ribbon

• Understanding the Navigation Pane

• Using the Single-Document vs. the Multiple-Document Interface

• Modifying Global Settings via the Access Options Dialog Box

Before you explore the many features of Microsoft Access 2010, it's worth spending a little time looking it over and "kicking the tires." Like a new model of a favorite car, this latest version of Access has changes to the body (user interface) as well as new functionality under the hood. In this chapter and the next, we'll explore the changes to the user interface, show you how to navigate through Microsoft's new replacement for the File menu called the Microsoft Office Backstage view, and discuss the various components of an Access database and how they interact.

Opening Access for the First Time

The first time you open Access 2010, you are presented with the Privacy Options dialog box shown in Figure  2-1. This dialog box lists three radio buttons, which are not selected by default. Note that you must have an active connection to the Internet to use the first two options. The Use Recommended Settings radio button, when selected, turns on several features of your Microsoft Office 2010 installation. Your computer will periodically check Microsoft's website for any product and security updates to your Office, Windows, or other Microsoft software. If any updates are detected, your computer will install these updates automatically for you. Selecting this radio button also allows Access to search Office.com's vast resources for content relevant to your search. Access downloads this information to your local computer for faster searching when you search for items in the Help section. Selecting this option means you will have the latest Help information at your disposal. When you choose Use Recommend Settings, Office downloads a special diagnostic tool that interfaces with the Office 2010 system. You can use this tool to help identify problems with your Office installation. Although not required to run the Office 2010 release or Access 2010, this tool might assist you with locating the cause of any unforeseen system crashes. Selecting Use Recommend Settings also allows you to sign up for Microsoft's Customer Experience Improvement Program. This utility tracks various statistics while you use Access 2010 and the Office 2010 release and sends that information to Microsoft. By tracking how customers are using their products, Microsoft can improve its Office line of products for future releases. Note that this option does not send any personal information to Microsoft. Click the Read Our Privacy Statement link in the lower-left corner to read Microsoft's privacy statement.

Figure  2-1.  You can choose Privacy Options when you first start Access 2010.

The second radio button in the Privacy Options dialog box, Install Updates Only, performs a subset of the features for Use Recommend Settings. When you select this option, your computer will check Microsoft's website only periodically for any product and security updates to your Office, Windows, or other Microsoft software and install them. The last radio button, Don't Make Changes, makes no changes to your Office 2010 installation. Selecting this option could leave your computer at risk, however, because your computer will not download and install product or security updates. After you make your selection in the Privacy dialog box, click OK to start using Access 2010.

After selecting your options in the Privacy Options dialog box, you can always alter these settings later. For more information on changing these settings, see Modifying Global Settings via the Access Options Dialog Box.

Getting Started with Access 2010

If you are a seasoned developer with the 2007 version of Access, the user interface of Access 2010 should be familiar to what you've been working with. If however, you have been working only in Access versions before 2007, be prepared for quite a shock when you first open Access 2010. Microsoft revamped the entire look and feel of the user interface in Access 2007 and made additional changes in Access 2010 and the other products in the Office 2010 release. To some degree, users of versions before Access 2007 will have a challenging task adjusting to all the changes the development team has incorporated into Access 2007 and Access 2010. If you are one of these users, you might even experience a short-term decrease in productivity as you become accustomed to where commands and tools are located on the new user interface elements called the Backstage view and the ribbon. (See Exploring the Microsoft Office Backstage View, for details about the Backstage view, and Understanding the Office Fluent Ribbon, for details about the ribbon.) For first-time users of Access, Microsoft continues to spend a great deal of development effort trying to make the "Access experience" easier and more intuitive in this version. With a new Getting Started screen, a host of ready-to-use client and web database applications available, and a context-driven, rich graphical ribbon and Backstage view, users will have an easier and quicker time creating professional-looking database applications.

On first starting Access, you see a new Getting Started screen on the New tab of the Backstage view, as shown in Figure  2-2. We will discuss all the elements of this New tab and the Backstage view in great detail in Exploring the Microsoft Office Backstage View.

Figure  2-2.  When you first open Access 2010, you can see the new Backstage view.

Opening an Existing Database

To showcase the user interface, let's take one of the template databases out for a test drive. Using the TasksSample.accdb database on the companion CD, based on the Microsoft Tasks template, we will highlight some specific areas of Access 2010. First, follow the instructions at the beginning of this book for installing the sample files on your hard drive. Click the Open button on the left side of the Backstage view to see the Open dialog box shown in Figure  2-3.

Figure  2-3.  You can use the Open dialog box to find and open any existing database file.

In the Open dialog box, select the TasksSample.accdb file from the folder in which you installed the sample databases, and then click OK. You can also double-click the file name to open the database. (If you haven't set options in Windows Explorer to show file name extensions for registered applications, you won't see the .accdb extension for your database files.) The Tasks sample application will start, and you'll see the startup form for the Tasks Sample database along with all the various database objects listed on the left side, as shown in Figure  2-4.

Figure  2-4.  When you open the Tasks Sample database, you can see the user interface for Access 2010.

We will discuss each of the Access 2010 user interface elements in greater detail in the following sections, but for now, here is a brief overview of the different elements. The upper-left corner of the screen contains a tab called File. This tab, called the Backstage view, replaces the Microsoft Office Button from Access 2007. Above this tab are a few smaller buttons on what is called the Quick Access Toolbar. This toolbar holds frequently used commands within Access 2010. Beneath the Quick Access Toolbar is a series of four tabs (Home, Create, External Data, and Database Tools) that contain many commands, options, and drop-down list boxes. These tabs are on what Microsoft refers to as the Office Fluent Ribbon and it replaces menu bars and toolbars from versions of Access before 2007. You will interact heavily with the ribbon when developing and using Access 2010 databases because most of the commands you need are contained on it.

Beneath the ribbon is a small message that says "Security Warning." This Message Bar informs you if Access has disabled potentially harmful content in this database. See Understanding Content Security, to learn what this message means and what you can do to avoid it.

On the left side of the screen is the Navigation pane, which replaces the Database window from versions of Access before 2007. In the Navigation pane, you can find all the various database objects for this database (tables, queries, forms, and so on).

To the right of the Navigation pane is where your database objects open. In Figure  2-4, you see that the Task List form is open. All possible views of your database objects appear in this area. Just beneath the Navigation pane and main object window is the status bar. The status bar displays text descriptions from field controls, various keyboard settings (Caps Lock, Num Lock, and Scroll Lock), and object view buttons.

Exploring the Microsoft Office Backstage View

The new Microsoft Office Backstage View in Access 2010 replaces the Microsoft Office Button from Access 2007, and you can display its collection of commands by clicking the File tab from within any database. Figure  2-5 shows you the available commands on the Info tab of the Backstage view.

Figure  2-5.  You can view many commands by clicking the File tab to open the Backstage view.

The Backstage view contains information and commands that apply to an entire database, as well as commands that were on the Microsoft Office Button in Access 2007. If you used versions of Access before 2007, the Backstage view contains commands that were on the File menu. At the upper-left section of the Backstage View, you'll see five commands that show at all times "Save, Save Object As, Save Database As, Open, and Close Database.

Using these commands, you can do any of the following:

• Save.  Save design changes for the database object that is open and has the focus in the Navigation pane.
• Save Object As.  Save a copy of the current open object that has the focus or the object that has the focus in the Navigation pane.
• Save Database As.  Save a copy of the current database. Note that if you click this command, Access closes the database that you have open so that it can create the copy.
• Open.  Open any existing database file on your computer or network.
• Close Database.  Close the currently open database and return to the New tab in the Backstage view.

Listed below the first five commands on the Backstage view, Access, by default, displays the file names of the last four databases you recently opened. To open any of these databases quickly, click the file name in the list. The six main tabs of the Backstage view "Info, Recent, New, Print, Save & Publish, and Help "are beneath the list of recently opened databases. Commands and information displayed on these tabs can change depending upon the current state of your database or if you are using a client versus a web database.

Info Tab

Let's first explore the Info tab previously shown in Figure  2-5. The Info tab displays the name of your database and the full path to its location. Beneath the file path, you'll see an Enable Content button and security information about your database. You'll learn more about these settings in Understanding Content Security. The button below it, Compact & Repair Database, compacts and repairs your database file. The last button on the Info tab, Encrypt With Password, creates an encrypted version of your database with a password. On the far right of the Info tab, you'll see a thumbnail preview of your database in its current state. Beneath the preview picture, is the View And Edit Database Properties link. Click this link to open the Database Properties dialog box to review and change properties specific to this database.

Recent Tab

The Recent tab, shown in Figure  2-6, displays a list of the databases you previously opened. If the number of databases you open exceeds the space to display them, Access provides a scroll bar for you to scroll up and down to see the complete list. At the bottom of the Recent tab, you'll see a check box called Quickly Access This Number of Recent Databases, which is selected by default. Clear this check box if you do not want to show a list of recent databases you have opened above the Info tab on the Backstage view. You can also customize the number of databases you want to display above the Info tab by changing the default value of four databases in the text box at the bottom of the screen.

Figure  2-6.  The Recent tab of the Backstage view displays a list of recent database files you opened.

To the right of each database file name, you'll see a pushpin button. Click this button to pin that specific database file to the displayed list of recent databases. Right-click any of the recent databases displayed, and Access provides a shortcut menu with four options, as shown in Figure  2-7. Select Open from the list, and Access opens the highlighted database. When you select the Pin To List option, Access pins that specific database file to the displayed list of recent databases. When you select the third option, Remove From List, Access removes that database file from the list of recent databases. Note that when you remove the database file from the list, you're not deleting the database from your computer; you are only removing it from this list on the Backstage view. When you select the last option on the list, Clear Unpinned Items, Access prompts you for confirmation that you want to remove all unpinned items from the list. Click Yes in the confirmation dialog box, and Access removes all database files from the list of recent database files that you have not pinned. You can use this option to quickly clear database files that you might have deleted and no longer wish to use from your list of recent databases.

Figure  2-7.  Right-click a database file to see additional options you can use to manage your list of recent databases.

New Tab

The New tab, shown in Figure  2-8, is the first tab shown in the Backstage view when you open Access. The Office.com Templates area in the center of the screen displays different template categories grouped by subject. Click one of these categories to change the display in the center of the screen to a list of templates that you can download from the Office.com website. Note that you must be connected to the Internet to see and download any templates in each of these categories. These templates were created by the Access development team and developers in the Access community. The templates represent some of the more common uses for a database and are therefore presented to you first. Microsoft is continually adding and modifying the selections available in the Office.com categories, so the list you see might be different from that shown in Figure  2-8. Be sure to check these groups from time to time to see if a new template exists for your specific needs. You can also search for a template on the Office.com website by typing your search criteria in the Search Office.com for Templates text box.

Figure  2-8.  You can create a database from a template, create a new blank or web database, or search for a database file to open on the New tab of the Backstage view in Access 2010.

Just above Office.com Templates in the middle of the screen are five buttons under Available Templates. The first button on the left is labeled Blank Database. You use this button to start the process of creating a new empty client database with no objects. See Chapter  4, for details on how to create a new blank client database. The next button to the right, Blank Web Database, starts the process of creating a new empty web database with no objects. See Chapter  6, for details on how to create a new blank web database. When you click Recent Templates, Access displays a list of database templates that you recently created from this New tab. To view the list of database templates available on your local drive that were installed with Access, click Sample Templates. Five of the sample templates listed under Sample Templates are web-compatible templates --Assets, Charitable Contributions, Contacts, Issues, and Projects. The last button under Available Templates, My Templates, lists any database templates that you created and saved locally to your computer. See Chapter 26, "The Finishing Touches," on the companion CD, for details on how to create your own database template.

Just beneath the Available Templates text at the top of the screen you'll see three navigation buttons. The Back, Forward, and Home buttons function like web browser buttons. As you navigate between the various template screens, you can click Back to move you back one screen in the history of screens you've opened. Click Forward to move you forward one screen in the history of screens you've opened. Click Home to take you back to the main page of the New tab on the Backstage view.

The task pane on the right of the New tab displays a graphic of the database template you select from the list of templates. For new blank databases you create, Access leaves this graphic empty. You can type the name of a new database file in the File Name text box beneath this graphic and browse to a location to save the database using the Browse button.

Print Tab

The Print tab, shown in Figure  2-9, displays three commands "Quick Print, Print, and Print Preview. Click Quick Print to send the selected database object to the printer immediately. Be careful here, because the object that has the focus might not be the one currently on the screen. If the focus is on an object in the Navigation pane, that object is printed instead of the object currently open. When you click Print, Access opens the Print dialog box to print whatever object currently has the focus. Here again, be careful about which object has the focus. Click Print Preview to preview the printed appearance of what you are about to print on your monitor.

Figure  2-9.  The Print tab of the Backstage view displays commands to print objects in your database.

Save & Publish Tab

The Save & Publish tab, shown in Figure  2-10, displays commands to save your database and objects in other formats and to publish your application to Access Services. In the center of the Save & Publish tab, you'll see two categories "File Types and Publish" and three commands "Save Database As, Save Object As, and Publish To Access Services. If you click one of these commands, additional commands appear in a submenu to the right. Click Save Database As and you'll see two categories for this option "Database File Types and Advanced". Under Database File Types, you can choose to save a copy of your entire database in 2007/2010 (.accdb), 2002/2003 (.mdb), or 2000 (.mdb) Access format. Note that if you choose to save the entire database, Access closes the database you have open so that it can create the copy. You can use the last option under Database File Types, Template (.accdt), to save your database as an Access database template. To start these commands, you can either double-click the command you want or highlight the command and then click the Save As button at the bottom of the screen. Under the Advanced category, the first option, Package And Sign, packages your database as a Cabinet file (CAB) and digitally signs it. Double-click the Make ACCDE command to make an execute-only version (.mde or .accde) of your database. When you double-click the Back-up Database command, Access creates a complete backup of your database file with the current date in the file name. You can choose the last command under the Advanced category, SharePoint, to publish your database to a document manager server.

Figure  2-10.  The Save & Publish tab contains commands to save your objects and database in different formats and to publish your application to Access Services.

Click Save Object As under File Types on the Save & Publish tab, and Access displays a different set of commands on the right, as seen in Figure  2-11. When you double-click Save Object As on the right side, the default is to save a copy of the current open object that has the focus or the object that has the focus in the Navigation pane. Double-click PDF Or XPS to publish a copy of the current open object as a Portable Document Format (PDF) or XML Paper Specification (XPS) file. The last command for Save Object As, Save As Client Object, saves a copy of the current open web object to a client object format. See Chapter  6 for details on how to create a web database and work with web objects.

Figure  2-11.  You can use the Save Object As command to save a copy of your database objects into different formats.

Click Publish To Access Services under the Publish category on the Save & Publish tab, and Access displays commands and information on the right concerning the new Access Services feature in Access 2010, as seen in Figure  2-12.

Figure  2-12.  You can publish your database to Access Services from the Save & Publish tab of the Backstage view.

Under Access Services Overview, you'll see information and bullet points on when using Access Services might benefit you. You'll also find a link you can click to watch a prepared video demo of Access Services on the Office.com website. Click Run Compatibility Checker to scan your database and identify any issues or settings that are not supported for Access Services. (See Chapter  6 for details on how to create a web database and working with the Web Compatibility Checker.) If any issues are found during the web compatibility scan, Access enables the Web Compatibility Issues button. Click that button to open a table that lists all the issues found. If you are currently using a web database, the Publish To Access Services button is enabled. Clicking this button starts the process of publishing your web database to a Microsoft SharePoint site to become an Access Services application. To the right of the Publish To Access Services button, you'll see two text boxes "Server URL and Site Name". Enter the full Uniform Resource Locator (URL) to the SharePoint server that you want to publish to in the Server URL text box and the name of the site you want to create in the Site Name text box. You'll learn more about all the Access Services features later in this book, beginning in Chapter  6.

Help Tab

The Help tab of the Backstage view, shown in Figure  2-13, displays commands and links to helpful information concerning Access 2010 and the Office 2010 software. Under the Support category in the center of the screen, you'll see three commands, Microsoft Office Help, Getting Started, and Contact Us. Click Microsoft Office Help to open the Access Help system where you can search Access topics for assistance building your database. Click Getting Started to open a link on Office.com where you can see a list of new features and resources pertaining to Access 2010. Click Contact Us to go to a website where you can find links to support options, go to online support communities, or submit suggestions to improve the product or report a problem.

Figure  2-13.  The Help tab on the Backstage view displays links to resources, help, and support for Access 2010.

Under the Tools For Working With Office category in the center of the screen, you'll see two commands, Options and Check For Updates. Click Options to open the Access Options dialog box, where you can choose different settings and preferences for your Access installation. Click Check For Updates to go to a website where you can run a program that verifies that you have the latest updates for your Office system.

On the right side of the Help tab, you'll see information about your Access 2010 and Office 2010 installed programs. Click the Change Product Key link to open the Microsoft Office setup dialog box to change your product key for your installation. Click the Additional Version and Copyright Information link to open the Access About dialog box to view the copyright information of your Access and Office installations. Click the last link on this tab, Microsoft Software License Terms, to view and print the licensing terms for your Office installation.

Beneath the Help tab, you can also find these two commands at the bottom of the Backstage view:

• Options.  Opens the Access Options dialog box, where you can choose and define many different settings and preferences for Access. See <Modifying Global Settings via the Access Options Dialog Box, for a discussion of these options.
• Exit.  Closes the currently open database file as well as completely exits Access.

Taking Advantage of the Quick Access Toolbar

Above the Backstage view is the Quick Access Toolbar. This special toolbar gives you "quick access" to some of the more common commands you will use in Access 2010, and you can customize this toolbar to include additional commands. Here are the default commands available on the Quick Access Toolbar:

• Save.  Saves any changes to the currently selected database object
• Undo.  Undoes the last change you made to an object or a record
• Redo.  Cancels the last Undo change you made to an object or a record

At the right end of the Quick Access Toolbar is a small arrow. Click that arrow, and you'll see the Customize Quick Access Toolbar menu, as shown in Figure  2-14.

Figure  2-14.  The default Quick Access Toolbar contains the Save, Undo, and Redo commands for the current object, and the command to customize the toolbar.

The upper section of the menu displays common commands that you might want to add to the Quick Access Toolbar. Note that the three default commands "Save, Undo, and Redo" have check marks next to them. You can click any of these to clear the check mark and remove the command from the Quick Access Toolbar. You can click any of the other nine commands (New, Open, E-Mail, Quick Print, Print Preview, Spelling, Mode, Refresh All, and Sync All) to add them to the right end of the Quick Access Toolbar. Near the bottom of this menu is More Commands, which allows you to fully customize what commands are available and how those commands appear on the Quick Access Toolbar. The Show Below The Ribbon option on the menu allows you to move the Quick Access Toolbar above or below the ribbon, depending on your preference.

To customize the Quick Access Toolbar, click the arrow on the right end and click More Commands near the bottom of the list. The Access Options dialog box appears, with the Quick Access Toolbar category selected, as shown in Figure  2-15.

Figure  2-15.  You can add or remove commands on the Quick Access Toolbar and change their sequence using the Customize category in the Access Options dialog box.

On the left, you can see a list of built-in Access commands that you can select to add to the Quick Access Toolbar. By default, the list shows commands from the Popular Commands category "commands that are used very frequently." You can change the list of commands by selecting a different category from the Choose Commands From list. The All Commands option displays the entire list of Access commands available in alphabetical order. Just below the list of available commands is a check box that you can select to show the Quick Access Toolbar below the ribbon. Clear the check box to show the Quick Access Toolbar above the ribbon.

The list on the right side of the screen by default displays what options are available on every Quick Access Toolbar for all your database files. If you add, remove, or modify the commands shown in the list on the right when you have chosen For All Documents (Default) in the Customize Quick Access Toolbar list, the changes are reflected in every database you open with Access 2010. To customize the Quick Access Toolbar for only the specific database you currently have open, click the arrow in the drop-down list and select the database file path for your current database from the list, as shown in Figure  2-16.

Figure  2-16.  You can add or remove commands on the Quick Access Toolbar for the current database by selecting your database from the Customize Quick Access Toolbar list.

When you select the current database, the command list below it is now empty, awaiting the changes you request. Find a command in the list on the left, and then either doubleclick it or click the Add button in the middle of the screen to add this command to your custom Quick Access Toolbar, as shown in Figure  2-17. If you make a mistake and select the wrong command, select the command in the list on the right and click Remove to eliminate it from your custom list.

Figure  2-17.  Add a command to the Quick Access Toolbar by selecting it in the list on the left and then clicking Add.

In addition to the built-in commands, you can select any macros you have defined in this current database. To do this, select Macros in the Choose Commands From list on the left.

A list of all your saved macro objects appears, and you can add these macros directly to your custom Quick Access Toolbar, as shown in Figure  2-18. We added one macro called mcrSample to this Tasks Sample database to illustrate the next steps.

Figure  2-18.  Add a saved macro object to the Quick Access Toolbar by selecting it in the list on the left and then clicking Add.

You can also assign custom button images to the macro objects you select. To do so, select one of your macros in the list on the right, and then click the Modify button to open the Modify Button dialog box shown in Figure  2-19. From here, you can choose one of the predefined button images available and also change the display name for this option on your custom Quick Access Toolbar.

Figure  2-19.  You can change the button face and the display name in the Modify Button dialog box.

After you have all the commands and macros that you want on your custom Quick Access Toolbar, you might decide that you do not like the order in which they appear. Access 2010 allows you to modify this order easily using the Move Up and Move Down arrow buttons at the far right of the dialog box. (You can rest your mouse pointer on either button to see the button name.) Select a command you want to move in the list on the right and click the up arrow to move it up in the list, as shown in Figure  2-20. Each successive click moves that command up one more place in the custom list. Likewise, the down arrow shifts the selected command down in the list. In Figure  2-20, you can see that we have moved the macro titled Greeting above the Options command.

Figure  2-20.  You can change the order of the commands on your Quick Access Toolbar by clicking the Move Up and Move Down arrow buttons.

From top to bottom in the list on the right, the commands appear from left to right on the Quick Access Toolbar after the commands assigned to all databases. When you are completely satisfied with your revisions, click OK to save your changes. Observe that your custom Quick Access Toolbar now appears on the screen above or below the ribbon, depending on the choice you have selected. Figure  2-21 shows our completed changes to the Quick Access Toolbar for this specific database.

Figure  2-21.  Our two additional commands now appear on the Quick Access Toolbar for this database.

To remove an item from your custom Quick Access Toolbar, reopen the Access Options dialog box with the Quick Access Toolbar category selected again by clicking the arrow on the Quick Access Toolbar and then clicking More Commands. To remove an item, select it in the list on the right and click Remove, and Access removes it from your list of commands. If you inadvertently remove a command that you wanted to keep, you can click the Cancel button in the lower-right corner to discard all changes. You can also find the command in the list on the left and add it back. Keep in mind that you can remove commands for all databases, or for only the current database.

If you want to restore the Quick Access Toolbar for all databases to the default set of commands, select For All Documents (Default) in the Customize Quick Access Toolbar list, click the Reset button in the lower-right corner of the screen, and then click Reset Only Quick Access Toolbar from the drop-down list. To remove all custom commands for the current database, select the database path in the Customize Quick Access Toolbar list, click Reset, and then click Reset Only Quick Access Toolbar. Before removing any commands on the Quick Access Toolbar, Access displays the warning message shown in Figure  2-22. If you click Yes to this Reset Customizations message, Access resets the Quick Access Toolbar for this current database back to the defaults.

Figure  2-22.  Access asks you to confirm resetting the Quick Access Toolbar back to the default commands.

If you modify the Quick Access Toolbar for all databases, you can export your customizations to a file that can be imported to another computer running Access 2010. Click the Import/Export button at the lower-right corner of the screen and then click Export All Customizations, as shown in Figure  2-23. You can choose a location to save this customization file for use on other computers. To import the Quick Access Toolbar customizations onto another computer, open Access 2010 on the second computer, reopen the Access Options dialog box with the Quick Access Toolbar category selected, click the Import/Export button at the bottom of the screen, and then click Import Customization File. Your custom Quick Access Toolbar options for all databases created on the first computer now appear in the Access program installed on the second computer.

Figure  2-23.  You can export and import your custom Quick Access Toolbar commands to other computers.

Microsoft Access 2010 Inside Out ByJeff Conrad, John Viescas Publisher:Microsoft Press Released:August 2010 Pages:1488