Menus Macros and Startup options!

This week we'll pick up an activity that'll show us how to create our applicatoin interface (a switchboard) in Access. It'll take a bit of time as we'll need to create some Macros to get our switchboard working well. Last but not least, we'll see how we can get our interface to load when the database first opens!

If we have time we'll also be finding out ...what is SQL? Do I really need to know SQL? There's a great introduction on SQL at Access Tips (as well as lots of other great tips for Access):

Anyone who has built anything but the most basic of queries using the Access query design window has already been using SQL without knowing it. Criteria like: Between #01/01/2003# AND #01/07/2003# or Not("London") or In("London", "Paris", "NewYork") are all phrases from the SQL language.

Access contains many tools and wizards that hep the user create a powerful database without having to learn SQL. But if you are at all serious about database building (and the fact that you are reading this suggests that you are!) a knowledge of SQL will help you build better, more powerful databases. So my answer is an emphatic "YES!".

This week we want to answer just three things:

• What is SQL (not just what it stands for, but what does it do)
• What's in it for me? (ie. What benefits are there to learning SQL?)
• What's an easy way that I can learn SQL?
  

and then, using the simplest Access query in your database (any database), see if you can find the SQL for your query.