Re: VB/Delphi "kind of" Service Program

Thanks Vern for your comments.

The reason I'm not willing to do it in Access 2003 itself is : I'd liketo provide customer with a "Function" to provide the interface forasking the Customer_ID. Another Function to find out Item_ID, etcSince they are developing quite a number of Application Forms dealingwith Customers, Items, etc, then , if done directly in Access, I thinkthey would have to implement the link to search for Customer or Item,etc in many other different places/times... If I provide them with a DLLthat includes/embebs those Functions, I think they'd find it more"transparent", ... and standardized (always the same). Or, am Icomplicating things up?

ActiveX I've never dealt with, but maybe is the way to go?

Personally, I think Functions "Ask_Customer", "Ask-Item", etc, ifavailable directly from within a DLL , are more clear for the Customer...

Am I wrong?

Vernon Hamberg escribió:

Short answer - certainly, this is possible. Butan even shorter answer - why not do it in Access- you already have VBA in Access that can do allthe prompting you need. What you are asking foris just another form, as I understand it. Isuggest opening up the Northwind example and takea look at the various forms in there.

But if you need something that will be used inmore than Access, get your copy of VB and getstarted. When you open a new project you areasked what kind of thing you want to create,whether an executable or a DLL or an ActiveXcontrol or some other option. You might want toconsider an ActiveX control, instead of a DLL -easier to use in Access. All the information youneed to get going is in the various helpresources of VB, especially the MicrosoftDeveloper's Network (MSDN) CD that usually comeswith VB or you can go tohttp://msdn.microsoft.com and rummage around.Lots of tutorials, sample code, etc. I have foundDelphi to be not as easy to get into as VB, butif you know Delphi, then there are similarresources for getting going. As for VB, I don'treally know whether to recommend .Net or VB6 -they are similar but different enough that it canbe messy going to .Net from 6, I understand.Others will have opinions here, and, of course,M$ wants you to go to the latest and greatest. Ofcourse, .Net is current, so might be the way togo if you have done no VB work before.


BTW, MSDN also has the documentation and examples, etc., for Access.

HTH
Vern

At 03:55 AM 6/10/2006, you wrote:

Well, maybe I did not make myself clear...
Let me try to explain it better this time:
As I see it, any "Function" , in any language, is "a program (or
whatever)" that can be invoked from another program (Application) to do
some work and return a result value.
What I'd like to write is a "Function", could be called
"Ask_Customer_ID", that would present some displays (windows) with
search criteria, show a list (ListBox) of those that qualify for the
entered search criteria, allow for selection, and return the selected
Customer_ID.
Any Access Form that needs the customer_ID (Order Entry, or Invoicing,
etc) asking the user for Customer_ID could then have a "Command Button"
that, when pressed, would call Function Ask_Customer_ID" to get it
returned and go on with other processing...

That function (and, possibly, others...) could be "encapsulated" (???)
in a .DLL to be used "where needed".
Can this be done? Any example of how to do it?
But from Access2000 Help (and I guess Access2003 would be the same...)
searching for "Call" (Action Execute Code):
   "Microsoft Access ignores the value returned by the Function" (??? !!!)
Then, maybe, passing the Customer_ID as a ByRef parameter?

Hope I made myself more clear this time.
TIA

Shannon ODonnell escribió:

So...I'm not following this completely here... are you wanting to have a
customer number (and all key fields) prompt that then writes the values to a
file which could be read by your Access and other apps?

And you're wanting it such that from within Access or Excel or whatever, you
can execute this new app to display the prompt. And your goal is so that the
single prompt provides a uniform look and feel to all the apps, writing the
data to a single file on the hard drive?

Is that what you're after?

-----Original Message-----
From: pctech-bounces+sodonnell=irish-studios.com@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:pctech-bounces+sodonnell=irish-studios.com@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
Of Antonio Fernandez-Vicenti
Sent: Friday, June 09, 2006 8:58 AM
To: PC Technical Discussion for iSeries Users
Subject: [PCTECH] VB/Delphi "kind of" Service Program_DLL

Customer is using Access/2003 for several apps. Several of them start
asking for something like "Enter Customer Number", so we'd like to just
implement such a Function just once and have all initial Forms for each
app, when users is promted for "enter CustomerNo" either answer with a
number (if he knows it) or , else, press F4 (or whatever, or a Button)
to "call a Function" that will do the work: e.g. present a new Form
asking for key values (LastName starting chars, FirstName starting
chars, CityAreaCode, etc. Then show customers that fulfill those
requirements, allow for selection of one of them , ... just to return
the selected code or a "not found" value... to the original App.

Such a Function would be used throughout in several different Apps. I
think one (best one???) of the alternatives would be to develop a
"CustomerSelect Function, receiving no-parms, returning one integer(or
zero, maybe) value of selected CustomerCode.
This Function could/should be writen either in VB or Delphi, then create
a  .DLL with that Function, to register under Windows, to be used for
any VB projects that need it.
I think of it as a "ServiceProgram" in RPG... but as a DLL.

Anyone out there willing to share an example (either VB and/or Delphi)
of such a Function?
TIA

Antonio Fernandez-Vicenti
afvaiv@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

--
Antonio Fernandez-Vicenti
afvaiv@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx


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Re: VB/Delphi "kind of" Service Program_DLL