Sorry folks, Access World will not accept my posts (1 Viewer)

[DakotaRidge]

I have created two conversations on AW since I joined this community. The site has locked me out of both because it blocks anyone after he/she has posted a few times to the same thread. Another user discovered the same problem.

I appreciate your comments and information very much. I am still learning to use Access. It is a super tool, and it works for me as a decision support system. I don't code, so I have to convert the logic into macros, and I use many MVFs in my applications.

Although most developers do not use MVFs, I have learned a few new things in the past few days from Pete and others about how to use them correctly. My use of MVFs is nonstandard, and I have used them since 2007 more as a visual tool than anything else.

It would be great if one of you wrote a textbook on the use of MVFs. I own only one book that touches on them.

Thanks again. You are helping this old guy a lot.

Let me finish by saying that if you don't use MVFs, you are leaving a very useful tool on the table. Yes, they have their shortcomings, but they do a fantastic job in many ways. There isn't a day that passes that I don't thank Microsoft. Yes, I know that other programs had them before Access. But Microsoft's implementation is outstanding.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

The reason you were locked out is PROBABLY an anti-spam measure that prevents you from posting anything with a link in it until you have posted a certain number of times. Our owner, Jon, did this because we were getting deluged with spam posts and the spamming accounts were relentless. It isn't personal and it isn't a malfunction. If there were a limit of X posts per thread, a LOT of us would be complaining. But I'm pretty sure "posts per thread" isn't on the table. Dollars to donuts you got caught on "links in post."

 

[DakotaRidge]

The reason you were locked out is PROBABLY an anti-spam measure that prevents you from posting anything with a link in it until you have posted a certain number of times. Our owner, Jon, did this because we were getting deluged with spam posts and the spamming accounts were relentless. It isn't personal and it isn't a malfunction. If there were a limit of X posts per thread, a LOT of us would be complaining. But I'm pretty sure "posts per thread" isn't on the table. Dollars to donuts you got caught on "links in post."

Thanks, Doc_Man. We were 40 posts into a very informative conversation when I got locked out. Others were able to continue posting, but I was the one who started the conversation. I couldn't tell anyone that I was still alive and kicking. I could have passed on and people could have continued teaching me about code and MVFs.

This happened to me twice. The time I was trying to learn about using animation in an Access database. I have seen presentations about using animation, but I am not a master at it. I am sure someone in the community knows a lot more about .Move statements than I do.

 

[Gasman]

First thing I would try is another browser.
I am not aware of any software here that would exclude a certain member.
We could have used that a few times in the past, if there was.
Plus here, one can ignore users/threads and subforums if anyone is annoyed too much.

 

[Gasman]

The site has locked me out of both because it blocks anyone after he/she has posted a few times to the same thread. Another user discovered the same problem.

Who is this òther user?

 

[DakotaRidge]

Who is this òther user?

Sorry, Gasman. I read the post, but I don't remember the user's name. His post told me that the problem could be a common one. I did reply to the person.

For my two conversations, I spent several minutes drafting a reply to someone, and when AW blocked me. It posted a message, but what good does that do? I did copy my last reply to Word so as not to have wasted my time.

I had learned a lot from you folks, and I was enjoying the conversation. A few folks beat me up, but what the heck, I am not a developer and dumb stuff about Access comes from me all the time.

If AW does this as SOP, then I suggest that it warn people before it blocks their posts.

 

[DHookom]

I believe the number of posts required is/was 100.

 

[Gasman]

Sorry, I refuse to believe that this site deliberately stops people posting,if no links are supplied. That also means links to your posts.

 

[Gasman]

Member is @Woodpecker

That is 2 out of goď ķñows how many members here.

 

[DHookom]

Can you take a screen shot of your error message or is that prohibited also? We can't see your screen.

 

[Gasman]

I myself had an Oòps message on my phone the other day.

 

[DHookom]

Member is @Woodpecker

That is 2 out of goď ķñows how many members here.

@Woodpecker has had less than 40 posts.

 

[DakotaRidge]

Duane, I am not sure what that means.

Gasman, I wouldn't accept an Oops from my phone company. Take it back.

 

[DHookom]

Duane, I am not sure what that means.

Gasman, I wouldn't accept an Oops from my phone company. Take it back.

There are specific rules defined in this forum that don't allow some types of content in posts from participants with less than 100 posts. I recall watching my post count grow to 100 so I had full rights.

 

[DHookom]

That sounds like the reason. @DakotaRidge posted several screenshots in that long thread, and only has 34+ posts to date. I would think Dakota could PM an admin to see if they can override the blocking?

I was a Microsoft MVP for 15 years, consider many here as personal friends, and have been contributing to these types of forums for over 20 years and I had to patiently (not really) wait for my 100th post.

 

[Mark_]

Isn't there also a soft limit on the number of posts a new user can make per day? That way a spammer can't just make a couple hundred posts to the same thread to get past the limit.

 

[Gasman]

what is supposed to happen when a member reaches that 100th post threshold?

You are able to post links.

 

[Gasman]

One can just paste pictures here on this forum, unlike AF, which gives that appearance but does not allow pasting images.

 

[DakotaRidge]

I think you know more about Access MVF's than anyone else because you've been frequently using them ever since they made their debut in A2007. So perhaps you should write that book? Decades ago, I worked on projects involving Informix and Oracle backends that had "collections" and "arrays" respectively, and it was a real PITA. Have you learned any useful tricks when dealing with Access MVF's?

BlueSpruce, I don't do anything special with MVFs. I store information in lookup tables that are managed using their forms. Like with everything else in my databases, the goal is to create reports and to make verbal suggestions to users (TTS).

MVFs do the first well because they display multiple attributes in columns. For example, if I want to see all the diseases that a person has then an MVF in a form will allow me to select all of their diseases for every member of a family unit, and it will show the disease names using commas or some other punctuation mark. The report would then show them in a column, so it will be easier for the user to read the information. Checkboxes make selecting one or more diseases easy for the user.

This doesn't mean that there aren't other ways to do this. I am only saying that I like using MVFs. They require no code, and they are intuitive to use for attribute information.

Also MVFs in reports expand downward automatically when directed to do so.

This works well for both my forms and reports because my tables have many fields. I optimize for space on both the monitor and on paper. Some of my tables have 10 MVFs. I place them strategically on forms and reports. Unlike most developers, I don't need to manipulate attributes in MVFs. My reports are designed to be documents, not lists of data.

To let users edit information in MVFs, I use forms for my MVFs. I label those forms as lfrm to distinguish them from main forms and subforms. This way Access groups and sorts my forms and other objects using assigned prefixes. I also give the objects similar names. So for one table, say Diseases, the table is named tblDiseases, the lookup table is named lkuDiseaseType, the main form is frmDiseases, and the form to edit the lookup table is lfrmDiseaseType, the main report is rptDiseases, and so on.

The best thing about using MVFs for me is reusing them multiple times. So the list of diseases can be used to describe a person's health, used with good foods to eat, and with bad foods to avoid. I can also use the list with foods that have been recalled by the government and producers. This is my approach to normalization, but I am not sure that that is what it is. By the time I am finished, MVFs will allow for Many-to-Many-to-Many relations.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

I will just point out that we recommend not MVFs but Combo Boxes based on a separate lookup table. Comparing the two, the MVF has a hidden infrastructure and thus is harder to maintain, particularly if you need to add or remove entries in the underlying table. BUT... otherwise, they take up the same amount of space. If I'm going to store code 12 and "XYZ", the only difference is whether I can see the name of the definition table. There is no difference in the space used. But that one little difference - a visible name for the supporting table - allows me to more easily DO things with the underlying data.

Your comments in post #22, middle section, talk about the advantages of MVFs, NONE OF WHICH are distinct from ordinary combo-box/table behavior. (They can't be, since it is the same mechanism.) The combo box, if you build it with a wizard, does not require you to engage in coding. You can control the nature of the drop-down behavior. You can get the combo to show multiple columns. You keep on showing us a distinction based on no difference. The REAL difference is that the MVF implied table, being hidden, is harder to work with when changes are needed. And there is the perceptual difference that hides how much you use that feature. I believe that each MVF creates its own hidden table, which means that even if you have the chance to re-use a set of values, you won't - potentially leading to duplicated data when sharing via combo/table setups on the forms could easily re-use data commonly looked up, via data sharing techniques. And heavens forfend that you should ever have two MVFs representing the same thing but with different codes stored for selection for the same values in two different hidden tables.