Buttons & Kb's

[AN60]

I have been making some custom buttons and noticed that the size of my db went up 360kb after I added two buttons. One button consists of two images and the other button one image. The original file size was 2kb for each image. Is 360kb a normal increase in db size after converting images to buttons?
There might be a hefty price to pay, in db size, if I get carried away and add my "up market" buttons to all my forms!

 

[KenHigg]

In my humble opinion, custom buttons have no place in an Access db. They add immediate and long term over head and do nothing to enhance the functionality of the system. The time (overhead) they take to build, deploy, etc. could be used streamlining code, etc.

It's like giving a two year old a box of magic markers... If your interest is graphic design, do Flash.

Just my humble opinion...

Ken

 

[Uncle Gizmo]

I never thought of it that way before Ken! Here I am I looking at some people's databases, with all the flashy bits on, thinking WOW!

And you are absolutely right, a commercial project, in house doesn't need it, the only place I think it may be necessary would be if you intended selling your database on the open market. And in that case maybe you should be producing it with something like visual studio net.

 

[Mile-O]

If I want to use graphics then I don't embed them due to the amount of space they take up. I put them in a folder and link to them. Even then, the only graphics I use in a database are the company logo.

 

[KenHigg]

I have several production db's with some graphic stuff. Originally, when the file locations, etc changed, the location of the graphics where hard coded - I had to dig around in the code and manually update the path. Then I used a custom sys table with a var to point to the files which works better, but even still, what a pain... I've got more important things to do (Like keeping up with this forum )


Ken

 

[AN60]

I agree with KenHigg that when it comes to time and results the flashy buttons don't stack up. Also I have suspected they bloat the db too but never checked to see. I must admit that I was suprised to see that three small 2kb images bloated my db by about 360kb once I embed'd them!! So it looks like I'm of the same opinion as you guys on this one and will only be doing custom buttons for special occasions like the company logo, as Mile-O does. I'm too lazy to link so I'll probably embed that one.

 

[ghudson]

I rarely use custom graphics for a command button but every now and then a project does need something unique. I import icons and embed them for a buttons "picture". Just ensure that you set the background of the icon to transparent so that the button will not look funny if you disable the button. As mentioned about, you can link the icons if you want to reduce the bloat.

I was very disappointed that Access 2003 still has the same lame button pictures to choose from since Access 95.

There are plenty of freeware icon extractor programs and icon editing programs out on the internet. Check NoNags.com if you ever need a freeware program that works without any annoying nag screens and NoNags checks all files before they post them to ensure that they are virus free and will not do anything malicious to your PC.