Front End & Back End Help

[racemadnss]

Ugly Access, Alternatives?

I have found that Creating forms in access, while they work, they look ugly.

I'd like to use Visual studios to make the Front End Program. In the end the backend will sit on a central server and I will have approximately 6+ front end apps connecting to the database.

I'm hoping to make the Front End with Visual basic 6 and then have access 2000 database as the backend. Is this a popular way of doing things or is there a better way?

 

[Pat Hartman]

Why would you ever choose Access (Jet) as your back end when you are using something other than Access as your front end? If you don't like Access, use a real relational database such as SQL Server. The whole point of Access is as a development environment. It is a really poor data repository since it is a file server rather than a database server.

 

[racemadnss]

Ok, so If I went with an SQL backend, how difficult would it be.

Ive been doing databases(Web:ASP & Mysql, and Access 2000) for a year or so, nothing deep until the past month. Would this be something only an Expert should try to do?

Thanks

 

[Pat Hartman]

Use MySQL if that's what you know and have available. It doesn't matter. It just should not be Jet if your fe is not Access.

 

[racemadnss]

Thanks for the Help

I am asking all this b/c Im a Web Designer, and I like things to look nice, So im exploring all of the different possiblities to make sure I can get a Database that looks nice, is easy to use and is not to terribly hard to create.

If I stick with access how do I split up access so I can put the data on the server and have seperate front end modules?

 

[Pat Hartman]

Use the database splitter. Later, you'll want to relink the be using the linked tables manager and change the path to the database to use the UNC format name rather than a fixed drive letter. This will make the distribution of the db easier and will not require that everyone map a specific drive to access the db.