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Access vba vs macro's

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  • 26-05-2009 10:48am
    #1
    DannyBuoy
    Registered Users Posts: 598 ✭✭✭


    Folks, is it the general feeling to use vba in a small access database app rather than using macros to achieve the same result?
    My database has about 12 tables and 14 forms but not a huge amount of data. Its mostly vba but with a few macros there aswell. The performance analyzer suggests converting macros to vba.
    Any comments? Thanks.


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    #2
    AccessQuery
    Closed Accounts Posts: 81 ✭✭AccessQuery


    DannyBuoy wrote: »
    Folks, is it the general feeling to use vba in a small access database app rather than using macros to achieve the same result?
    My database has about 12 tables and 14 forms but not a huge amount of data. Its mostly vba but with a few macros there aswell. The performance analyzer suggests converting macros to vba.
    Any comments? Thanks.

    Hello,
    Really depends on the app and who and what it's for and of course who'll be supporting it in the future? If it's for home use I wouldn't worry much either way. If it's a commercial app, VBA is a must with plenty of comments etc in the code.


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    #3
    DannyBuoy
    Registered Users Posts: 598 ✭✭✭DannyBuoy


    Hi, thanks for the reply. Its for a college project. What I have in the back of my mind is to demonstrate through the project that I can use both. So it'll never be inplemented commercially, but I still want to do the right thing :)


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    #4
    --amadeus--
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,096 ✭✭✭--amadeus--


    Macro functionality in Access is pretty limited and I wouldn't imagine that the examiners would be too impressed that you can use them - they are designed to be easy to understand.

    In general terms I would favour VBA. It's massively more flexible, gives greater opportunities to integrate with other applications (eg generating an email on a form event) and has teh benefit of being hidden away from prying and playing user eyes. That's all from a development perspective though - performance wise I can't imagine there would be any speed difference to simple automation (eg opening a form from a button) using VBA over macros though so if everything is in place and working I'd leave it alone (one thing I've learned is taht if it's working don't feck around with it!)


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    #5
    BostonB
    Closed Accounts Posts: 18,056 ✭✭✭✭BostonB


    DannyBuoy wrote: »
    Hi, thanks for the reply. Its for a college project. What I have in the back of my mind is to demonstrate through the project that I can use both. So it'll never be inplemented commercially, but I still want to do the right thing :)

    Your a programmer. Use VBA. You need to learn it.

    Macro is for Mary in accounts who is a power user.


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    #6
    DannyBuoy
    Registered Users Posts: 598 ✭✭✭DannyBuoy


    BostonB wrote: »
    Your a programmer. Use VBA. You need to learn it.

    Macro is for Mary in accounts who is a power user.

    I'm sure you didn't mean that to be a smart ass reply there Boston, but it kinda comes across as that. As it happens I'm not a programmer, I'm studying another field of IT but it involves some project work that can involve code if necessary.

    Thanks to the other helpful commentators.


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    #7
    BostonB
    Closed Accounts Posts: 18,056 ✭✭✭✭BostonB


    Actually I thought that was a concise way of explaining it. Because they are the types of people (user roles) who use either.

    If you are not studying programming, it would be useful to have clarified that at the start. However if you are not, then perhaps this isn't a programming question. But maybe its a question about how you'll be scored on your project. Can't answer that. From a practical POV. (bad analogy warning) But this is like using a paper diary, and asking at what point do you need to start using a PDA synched to Outlook. When the paper diary becomes unwieldy is the best I can answer that.


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