Looking for a replacement OWC Spreadsheet

[toddbailey]

Hey,


MS has cancelled support of the OWC 11 controls, current implementation is quite buggy.

can someone suggest a suitable replacment data grid control? (cheap or free = good)

Sub forms are not an option, the organization is trying to eliminate the 200 plus subforms that emulate a datagrid.

these would be unbound grids that get populated either by code (vb/a) or user data entry.

Suggestions please...

 

[Pat Hartman]

Sub forms are not an option, the organization is trying to eliminate the 200 plus subforms that emulate a datagrid.

I have never heard of anything so ridiculous. This edict is absolute insanity! If you are going to use Access as your FE, you should use Access subforms and NOT unbound third-party data grids. It is unlikely you'll even find any anyway let alone have a choice of free or not free, good or bad. Once Microsoft ditched VB in favor or the .Net framework, everyone making VB addins stopped, not that all VB controls worked with Access anyway.

Your current implementation is quite buggy probably because you are using unbound data grids instead of bound subforms!! This misses the entire point of using Access. You are far better off using VB or the .Net enviroment if you are not going to use bound forms.

 

[toddbailey]

The application isn't buggy, the OWC is.
Please re read original post.

Also the application uses mostly bound subforms...

Obviously you don't have much experience with large scale data base applications. I'm talking tera bytes.
The application I'm supporting has over 500 forms, mainly because the original programmer fresh out of high school/jr college (so I'm told) though it ok to use as many sub forms as necessary (or possible).

While sub forms do work they incur penalties across the board, memory use, performance, cpu load etc. They are hacks at best, are difficult to maintain, trouble shooting is problematic, and offer little in the way of customization. when in doubt, use the kiss approach...

I'm not saying not to use them, they are fine for entry level programmers and mom and pop operations, but the system I'm maintaining is quite sizeable and needs additional functionality.

I suggest you google data grid controls and download some of the free demos, and see for your self.

I found no less than a dozen vendors who supply Access compatible products. The company I'm at has several million in revenue, so having to purchase a site license for a few $100 isn't a big deal. If this were a hobby operation of an micro sized company it would be a different story.

Eventually, this application will get ported to a real database engine and a real programming language, but for now, I forced to deal with the deck of card I have.
And this particular control has features that other department are taking notice. Job security eh? yea!

Anyway, I found what I needed there, thank you all the same.

 

[Pat Hartman]

Obviously you don't have much experience with large scale data base applications. I'm talking tera bytes

I do. Not tera bytes perhaps but millions of rows. That's why my forms and subforms use queries with criteria to limit the rows returned. You might try altering the criteria before discarding the subforms entirely if they are pulling too much data.