SMALL BIZ TLC

Barath Balasubramanian is a test design engineer in our team, working on server query processor, session management, and other areas. During his free time, he likes to play tennis.

We got a lot of good feedback from the public beta release. One of the things we heard loud and clear was how much more powerful data macros would be if you could return values to UI macros. So we recently added this feature post beta 2. ReturnVars in Data Macro are similar to values returned by function/method calls in VBA or other programming languages. Functionally, they fill the gap traditionally filled by domain functions as a way to get data into a UI layer. See these previous posts for more background on macros and data macros.

The crux of what you need to know is how to set a ReturnVar in a Data Macro and how to retrieve the value via a UI Macro. Here is the simple code to set a ReturnVar:

And how you would reference it in a UI macro (of course you have to call the data macro before getting the return value):

Let’s see an example of how Return Vars can be used in a database. Consider this twitter like scenario where you can “follow” or “unfollow” a person depending on whether you are already following this person or not. The goal here is to show a form with a person’s profile and a button to either “follow” or “Unfollow” the person. This is how the form should look in the end:

This can be achieved by writing two pieces of macros. First, use a data macro to check if the user is being followed or not:

• Look Up the record to verify value
• Return the result (Return Var)

Secondly, use a UI Macro to:

• Run this data macro in step 1
• Set the caption of the button using the value returned by the data macro in step 1b

Data Macro:

In the figure below, we see a data macro named “IsFollower” that takes in two parameters - “prmFolloweeID” and “prmFollowerAlias”. The SetReturnVar data macro action is used to initialize the value of a variable named “isFollower” to “No”. The look up record action is used to check if the person is already being followed or not. If a record is found, then the return variable “IsFollower” is set to “Yes”

UI Macro:

What remains to be seen is how the data macro above is consumed by the UI layer. In the OnLoad event of the form, these UI Macro actions are added:

You’ll notice that the RunDataMacro action is used to call the IsFollower data macro. The required parameter values for the data macro are passed in. The [ReturnVars]![IsFollower] expression is used to examine the value returned by the data macro. If the return var value is “yes”, the command button’s caption is set to “Unfollow” or if the return var value is “no”, the command button’s caption is set to “follow”.

This is only a simple example for the use of Return Vars in Data Macros. Unlike many other programming languages where you can send only one object as a returned value for a function/method, you may set more than one ReturnVar in a single data macro and all the return var values are readily available for use in the UI layer.

Go have fun with Return Vars!

Today’s guest writer is Neha Monga, Program Manager on the Access team. She works on compatibility checker, the runtime, Access developer extensions, and the future of the Access user experience.

I’m starting to think about ways to improve the Access user experience to make YOU faster, more efficient and smoothly connect to what comes before and after. I would love to get feedback from you on the following areas:

1. What tasks do  you do often, and you wish Access were faster or more efficient?

Example – if you were to use the date picker to change the date to many years in the past (such as a birthday), it will take a lot of clicks to go back each year. It would be nice to be able to ‘jump’ to a specific year.

1. Are there any scenarios where you find Access is not responsive and the operation takes too long?

Example – a query that ran faster in a previous version of Access.

1. Are there scenarios where the sequence of operations is not intuitive? i.e. you don’t understand what to do next (until you read about another Access ‘gotcha’)?

Example – how to create re-occurring Outlook saved export task.

1. Are you able to easily start off, pause, stop and pick up from where you left or do you lose work when you attempt to do that?

Example – you work on an object and close the database but the navigation pane doesn’t reselect the object and you need to go find it.

I look forward to hearing about your scenarios, steps, pain-points and fast and fluid user experience suggestions! No promises but I have a high hopes your feedback will have a big impact in future releases. You can post responses here or send email through the blog. 

Thanks in advance!

There is a post on the Office 2010 Engineering blog about our ship date. The magic day is May 12th. Wahoo! We look forward to your feedback. :-)