Access Europe User Group - Wed 7 Jan: Spot the Difference – A new style MsgBox for Access (Neil Sargent)

[isladogs]

The first Access Europe User Group meeting for 2026 will be on Wednesday 7 Jan starting at 18:00 UK time (6PM UTC) and finishing by 19:30 (7.30PM).
Please note that the UK has now reverted to winter time. For local times, please check World Time Buddy

In this session, we are very pleased to welcome UK developer, Neil Sargent.
In his presentation, Neil will demonstrate his new style message box and explain the journey taken to get there.

Over the past couple of years, Microsoft has been gradually rolling out a significant update to the old style message box used in all Office apps for built-in messages.
Gone are the monochrome and rather forgettable messages of the past. Now we have colorful messages that catch users' attention more effectively.

This has been a gradual change and, unfortunately, the new style dialog has not yet been ported across to the messages that developers create using code.

UK developer, Neil Sargent set out to replicate these new style message boxes in Access.
In doing so, he discovered a number of design features which are likely to be both interesting and useful to other developers.

I hope you will join us on Wed 7 Jan for this session.

For more details about the topic and speaker together with connection details for the meeting, please visit https://www.isladogs.co.uk/aeu-47/ or https://accessusergroups.org/europe/event/access-europe-2026-01-07/

Please also download and import this iCalendar (.ics) file to your calendar application e.g. Outlook.
Doing this will add a recurring event for the first Wed of each month at the correct time for your location/time zone.

The meeting will again be held on Zoom. When the time comes, you can connect using Join Zoom Meeting.
If you are asked, use: Meeting ID: 924 3129 5683; Passcode: 661210

 

[isladogs]

REMINDER
Access Europe meeting led by Neil Sargent is TODAY - less than 1 hour from now.
Be there . . . or be square!

 

[isladogs]

Neil Sargent gave an excellent presentation to the Access Europe User Group on Wed 7 Jan which he called Spot the Difference – A new style MsgBox for Access.

The session was interesting to developers not just for Neil replicating the new style message box itself but also for the development journey.
It was a high quality & very detailed session, prepared over many months with a large number of UI tips for developers

The video of Neil's presentation is now available on YouTube:

I hope you enjoy it

You can also download a PDF of the slides and the example app used in this presentation from https://isladogs.co.uk/aeu-47

 

[DickyP]

I personally hate the new style message box!

It provides nothing new and is much harder to read for people like me with weak, close-to eyesight

 

[CJ_London]

@DickyP - if you take a look at the presentation you could create your own ‘old style’ message box instead - and perhaps enhance it for those with poorer eye sight

Neil’s objective was to have a consistent look across the different styles

 

[DickyP]

@DickyP - if you take a look at the presentation you could create your own ‘old style’ message box instead - and perhaps enhance it for those with poorer eye sight

Neil’s objective was to have a consistent look across the different styles

I will look at it when I get a decent internet connection back: ours has been dodgy in the extreme for the last few days with storms, gales, snow etc. Hopefully, I'll be able to do my my luddite thing.

Mind you this change is a perfect example to MS doing the other thing Murphy warned about: "if it ain't broke, don't fix it.". I'd much rather they spent time doing something useful like implementing a native decimal datatype, rather than making unnecessary cosmetic changes.

 

[NauticalGent]

...rather than making unnecessary cosmetic changes.

 

[GPGeorge]

At some point, I believe Microsoft went from a technology company with a good marketing strategy to being a marketing company with usable technology.

 

[DickyP]

At some point, I believe Microsoft went from a technology company with a good marketing strategy to being a marketing company with usable technology.

couldn't agree more - users? What are they?

 

[Jason Lee Hayes]

Neil Sargent gave an excellent presentation to the Access Europe User Group on Wed 7 Jan which he called Spot the Difference – A new style MsgBox for Access.

The session was interesting to developers not just for Neil replicating the new style message box itself but also for the development journey.
It was a high quality & very detailed session, prepared over many months with a large number of UI tips for developers

The video of Neil's presentation is now available on YouTube:

I hope you enjoy it

You can also download a PDF of the slides and the example app used in this presentation from https://isladogs.co.uk/aeu-47

The code demo is impressively clean — you can tell how much skill and effort went into achieving that result. Really well done, and thanks for sharing it.

 

[isladogs]

All companies (not just tech companies or indeed Microsoft), feel the need to refresh the appearance of their products every few years to avoid the risk of looking outdated and losing customers.

With regard to Office apps and Access in particular, we all have our opinions about UI changes.
Over the years, there have been some changes I've disliked intensely and others that I've welcomed.

With message boxes, the purpose is to try & ensure these are noticed by users (and ideally read) rather than just clicked and dismissed.
On the other hand, it shouldn't be too obtrusive as to annoy users

In my experience, the old style message box is dull and often ignored.
Over the years, many developers including myself have created variations in an attempt to improve on the original
Personally, I think the new style message box is much better than the old version.
I like the larger and more colorful title and the stated intention of Neil's demo was to achieve that style consistently across Access

However, for those who want to modify the style, its also easy enough to change the colours and font size.
For example the DickyP box below took me less than a minute to achieve

But of course, Windows & Access allows you to do similar things natively

 

[Jason Lee Hayes]

Neil Sargent gave an excellent presentation to the Access Europe User Group on Wed 7 Jan which he called Spot the Difference – A new style MsgBox for Access.

The session was interesting to developers not just for Neil replicating the new style message box itself but also for the development journey.
It was a high quality & very detailed session, prepared over many months with a large number of UI tips for developers

The video of Neil's presentation is now available on YouTube:

I hope you enjoy it

You can also download a PDF of the slides and the example app used in this presentation from https://isladogs.co.uk/aeu-47

No shadow on move that was discussed - will need optimising but it does the trick

 

[isladogs]

As far as I am aware, Neil Sargent isn't an AWF member but I'm happy to alert him to any suggested code changes including that in post #12.

Those who, like @Jason Lee Hayes and @CJ_London, were at the meeting will remember a lot of discussion about alternative ways of creating the 'all-round shadow' effect. For info, it is possible to do this with a single button using an inner shadow though whether that would appear close enough to the real thing would be a matter of opinion. I suspect Neil would say not.

 

[DickyP]

All companies (not just tech companies or indeed Microsoft), feel the need to refresh the appearance of their products every few years to avoid the risk of looking outdated and losing customers.

With regard to Office apps and Access in particular, we all have our opinions about UI changes.
Over the years, there have been some changes I've disliked intensely and others that I've welcomed.

With message boxes, the purpose is to try & ensure these are noticed by users (and ideally read) rather than just clicked and dismissed.
On the other hand, it shouldn't be too obtrusive as to annoy users

In my experience, the old style message box is dull and often ignored.
Over the years, many developers including myself have created variations in an attempt to improve on the original
Personally, I think the new style message box is much better than the old version.
I like the larger and more colorful title and the stated intention of Neil's demo was to achieve that style consistently across Access

View attachment 122872

However, for those who want to modify the style, its also easy enough to change the colours and font size.
For example the DickyP box below took me less than a minute to achieve

View attachment 122871

But of course, Windows & Access allows you to do similar things natively

View attachment 122873

Thanks for trying to produce a variant that might suit me. It is, however, just that; a variant of the same thing. Obviously, things aren't going to change and I will have to live withe new version(which I still don 't like. )

I does, however, remain change for change's sake and is totally unnecessary.

And the idea of looking tired is irrelevant, as your tired is my maturity. Nobody is going to stop buying or using a product because messages haven't changed their appearance.

 

[DaveMD]

I appreciate the work done by the presenter. This is much more than just giving the message box a more modern look. It adds useful features to the message box, such as being able to handle long messages (even will display a scrollbar and allow for sizing the message box to better fit text). Also, the ability to copy/paste the text from the message box is another useful feature. I have wanted to be able to do this in applications particularly when you get an error message that you want to research more without having to manually type the error message from the static msgbox.

 

[isladogs]

@DickyP
Whilst they clearly don’t suit you, for many people, the changes make the messages easier to read / act upon including the addition of colour to the default button.

However, one of the points I was making is that anyone can modify the appearance of standard message boxes to suit individual preferences or needs. Changing the Access theme to black reverses the forecolor and backcolor. Windows Accessibilty options allow users to do a variety of things including using a monochrome theme and/or to increase the font size.
So you don’t need to put up with something you don’t like. Instead use the available functionality to achieve what you do like and can read easily

 

[tvanstiphout]

One of the points I was making is that anyone can modify the appearance of standard message boxes to suit individual preferences or needs. Changing the Access theme to black reverses the forecolor and backcolor. Windows Accessibilty options allow users to do a variety of things including using a monochrome theme and/or to increase the font size.
So you don’t need to put up with something you don’t like. Instead use the available functionality to achieve what you do like

I disagree, Colin. While it is true you can write a MsgBox replacement, that is a far cry from having ALL messages having consistent features. Like @DaveMD I have been annoyed that for example ODBC error dialogs do not allow you to copy the text using Ctrl+C, while other messages (including VBA.MsgBox) *do* allow that.
Replacing ALL messages by a consistent interface is VERY hard.

 

[isladogs]

@DaveMD
Thank you for taking the time to watch the video and for pointing out some of the excellent features that Neil built in to his replacement function which he worked very hard to create over several months.

 

[isladogs]

@tvanstiphout
I think you misunderstood my comments in post #16. I was suggesting that @DickyP used Windows accessibility and/or Office themes to modify the appearance of standard messages. Not that he wrote his own message boxes.
Having worked on creating my own message box replacements, I know how hard that can be.
Neil did an outstanding job in what he has achieved, but it took a lot of work over a long time.

 

[isladogs]

No shadow on move that was discussed - will need optimising but it does the trick

Hi Jason
Just tested this.
It works well when the message form has no object behind it. However I got some odd 'ghosting' effects when I moved the form over another form or the nav pane or partly off screen to the left. Not looked into the reasons as yet.

For anyone else wanting to try this code without overwriting the original, rename the existing clsFormWindow and then import the code into a new blank class module with that name.