I'm working on a shareware type of program which is relatively boring except that I need to be able to download data from various Internet data servers. I want to avoid any problems with distributing Winsock controls, etc, etc so I'm going to be hitting the Winsock API directly. The folks at the Visual Basic Internet Programming have done a fine job, IMNSHO, on their website and particularly Winsock API (Windows Sockets API) with Visual Basic page. Well documented. I'm quite happy.
This will also be my first major foray into VB so the complete system using forms and so on will be quite interesting after my many years of experience with Access. One of my important design criteria is that the system be easy to download and install. Unfortunately Access's runtime is quite large for modem users to download. Thus my decision to write this system in VB. I wrote the Auto FE Updater in VB so I'm getting some experience with VB.
Sorry, no further details on what the system will do until I have finished my alpha testing. <smile> Later. Turns out there is at least one good product out there which is pretty much exactly what I want to do. So no sense re-inventing the wheel. That said a friend has an idea for another program with just about the same criteria. So we'll see how that one goes.
I've spent a fair bit of time building a custom system for a large welding shop. They build the piping systems which connect the various large vessels, pumps, tanks and so forth for oil refineries, chemical plants, power plants and so forth. The FE is about 25 Mb compacted and contains about 1300 queries, 450 forms, 350 reports and about 70,000 lines of code. (I thought there'd be a lot more code.) The BE is about 250 Mb with 150 tables four of which have over 200,000 records.
The Relationships Window prints on 10 11"x17" sheets of paper. We blew the Access 97 Relationships Printing Wizard a long time ago. Thankfully Stephen Lebans wrote a utility to go through the Relationships Window and put the contents into a BMP.
This has been my largest Access system. The folks at the client are excellent and are quick to give me lots of feedback. The former IT manager was very good at challenging my GUI concepts and extending the range of what I'm used to doing.
Future includes converting to Access 2000 and, possibly, upsizing to SQL Server 7/2000.
I built VolStar for a local event. A good friend knew I was a wiz with Access and got me involved, as a volunteer when various plans they had bee promised never quite made it to completion. After working on it for three weeks I sat back and realized just how much more work I had to do. I got to thinking just how much more work it was going to be to complete the system but kept right on going. <smile>
It proved quite successful and relatively trouble free. As a result I've made some sales of it and have quite enjoyed the contact with my clients. The reality is though that I'm an excellent, or so I like to think, programmer and systems analyst, but I do a lousy job at marketing. So if any one out there reading this would like to do some selling for a nice percentage please send me an email. <bigger smile>
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