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...

In yesterday's post, I skipped the design view of the ribbons for all the objects simply to save space, but as one of the commenters noted these are quite interesting for developers. So here they are! Sorry I didn't get 'em in yesterday's post. Table Design As I showed in the Starting from Scratch post, there's a lot you can do without having to go to the table designer in Access 12, but of course the table design view is still there and is the way we expect developers to build most of their tables...

At long last, I can show and discuss the new Ribbon UI in Access 12. There have been a few comments asking about this in the blog, and I haven't been able to show the whole thing yet (anyone that has seen the Beta 1 version of Access will find this layout quite different, although the concepts are the same). Finally we've gotten the layout mostly nailed and can now talk about it. At long last, here's how controls will work in Access 12. Overview of the New UI As you're probably aware, most of the...

One of the most basic tasks in Access is creating somewhere to put data - designing schema. My goal for today was to run through the basic schema creation tools, and to leave the new "complex data" schema creation for next time, but in looking at the last post , much of the most basic ground was already covered, so we'll go further in this post and cover the complex data features as well. Schema from Datasheet As described in the last post, Access 12 can create schema by example, where the user simply...