In an earlier post, I showed the Navigation Pane , which shows all of the objects in the current database. The Nav Pane works great, is easy to expand and collapse sections, and so on, but the list can still get long enough to be hard to find things quickly. So, we've added the ability to filter it. Here's how it works. First, the filtering UI is turned off by default (since it takes up space and is only useful for some large databases). If you'd like to use it, go to the Navigation Options dialog...

Hello! I’m Erik Rucker, and I’m the Group Program Manager for Microsoft Access. I’ll be using this blog to share details about the upcoming version of Access, which we’re currently referring to as “Access 12”. I’ll be working with other folks on the Access team on these posts, and so in addition to the product you’ll get a chance to meet some of the people who are building it. The development team for Access 12 is about 7 times as large as the one for Access 2003, and this has allowed us to do a...

This is a quick post that isn't on the overall list but that is provides some more details about new color tools in Access 12. This was written by Clint Covington on the Access PM team (thanks Clint!). The post on the new forms design tools is still to come. Colors in Access 12 Office 12 introduces a new theme model for the ribbon and shell chrome. The blue Luna and dark obsidian themes draw from different color palettes. Access 12 introduces a new set of form and report colors that make it possible...

I created an online poll to find out what you think this blog should feature.

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There is a flattering blog post Microsoft Gets Blogging by Thomas Hawk. Some interesting quotes include: I'm not sure when exactly or if it's ever been an official sort of thing, but it seems like Microsoft of all of the companies that I've seen out there interacting with bloggers consistently gets it right. And I read random stories and blog posts like the one above where it just seems like some Microsoft employee is hanging out reading some blog at random and takes the initiative to interact very...

Do you have questions about Office 2010? Want to learn more about Windows 7?  For the first time ever MVPs from both Windows and Office have come together as a collaborative group for a special live chat. MVPs will be on hand to take questions about Microsoft Office 2010 or Office 2007 products such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Access, Project, and OneNote, as well as Windows 7 and earlier versions. This event is a great opportunity to tap into the vast knowledge of these industry professionals...

Today’s guest writer is Ric Lewis—the PM in charge of publishing to SharePoint. A common question in the Access community is “how do I get my app on the web?” Here is the most recent example : My wife and I have just started our own Recruitment business and I started an Access DB to basically be a contact manager and to track our jobs, candidates, clients and placements we make. I got to a certain point and realized I was out of my depth, so I enlisted the help of an Access...

Today’s guest writer is Liam Cavanagh from the Sync Framework and SQL Services team. They are doing some cool stuff that allows Access developers to store their app and data in the cloud using SQL Server Data Services. Liam is looking for people that want to beta test an upcoming release early next year. --Clint Today at PDC we are announcing Codename “Huron”, a set of synchronization experiences built on top of the sync functionality in SQL Data Services’ cloud database and...

Mike Hnatt has generously extended to the Access blog readers a FREE version of Gladstone’s Access Report Writer . Traditionally, he has sold the developer version of the wizard for $995. The offer includes unlimited computer licenses, ability to change report header and page footers, source code, and royalty-free distribution for your application. One of the best things about the wizard is it is re-entrant. You can learn more about the report wizard here . Here are a few screen shots:    ...

Today’s guest writer is Steve Greenberg, a Lead Program Manager on the team. Steve is responsible for form rendering and the new templates in Access 2010. Last week the team was privileged to host our MVPs at a conference here in Redmond. During our in-depth talks about Access 2010, some of these MVPs asked me about the new DoCmd and macro action called BrowseTo that we’ve introduced with Access 2010. I’ve written this post to demystify this strange new action. In short, BrowseTo...