Summary

So, there we are. In this chapter we have had our first taste of VBA code. The chapter should also have given you some idea of how an application is built. As a developer, you build your forms and reports and then write code that causes the objects you have created to respond to events in a particular way. In an event-driven environment like Access, you can let the users decide the order in which your code modules are executed.

We have spent some time looking at the different events that can occur in Access and how these can be put to use. You have seen, for example, how the On Current event can be used to solve one of the tasks we set ourselves at the start of the chapter - enabling and disabling navigation buttons depending on our position in the recordset. We shall complete this feature for all the buttons in later chapters, once we have a few more programming concepts under our belt.

We have also spent some time looking at the VBA IDE, and by now you should feel comfortable with:

• What events are

• How to make an Access object respond to an event

• The VBA IDE

• What modules are and how they are used to store code

• How to use the On Current event to make a navigation button intelligent

Finally we saw how to improve the user 's interface experience by using the On Undo event automatically guarding against their possible mistakes.

In the next couple of chapters, we will be looking at the nuts and bolts of VBA so that you will be able to write your own event handlers more easily. Ponder on the following points before moving on to the next chapter.