Earlier this week I was working with one of my users on the final adjstments to a new version of their Access database in Access 2010 using Access Services.
The user mentioned that a Combo-Box was too narrow to show the entire text of the field (because of course the entries are much longer than I anticipated).
So as we were on the phone I said “Wait a sec.”, opened the form in design mode, widened the Combo-Box, saved the form, went to the File menu and hit the big Green Synch button. Then I asked her to close and reopen the form. She did and the Combo Box was now wider. In seconds.
The interesting thing is that I was in Canada and she was in Texas. Any other users around the world who use this application will get this change automatically next time they open the form. All with a click of one big green button. Wanna talk about responsive development? That’s what we’re looking at here?
Maybe this little episode is anathema to “real” developers who think there should be a change request and a dev plan, QA testing and creation of an MSI to distribute the change. But from my perspective I have delivered a fix to a user instantly and effected a change that is immediately available to all users is a VERY GOOD THING.
This takes Access’s ease of development and distribution to a new level that is actually overwhelming me in its potential. Now the world just has to find out about this.
Dick
Dick Moffat's Spreadsheet and BI Blog 