visual basic for beginers

[bolimasa]

I work in a research lab where I often develop databases to hold our research data.
I often use macros to fill in fields where the data can be determined from other data in my databases. I suspect that many of the things I do would be accomplished more efficiently if I could write them in VB code. The problem is I have absolutely no computer programing experience, other than being a self taught access database designer(and I fully admit to not understanding many aspects of access) and have no idea where to get started to learn visual basic. Most of the resources I have found seem to assume that you already know how to program, and simply need to learn the syntax and graphical interface. Does anyone have the name of a good resource for a beginner like me?

 

[Howlsta]

Mastering Microsoft Access 2000 Development by Alison Balter is a good book to get. It'll teach you what you need to code and examples are quite good. Costs $50

Rich

 

[Talismanic]

This is a cut and paste from another thread I responded to. While this will not teach you VBA it is a good way to get to know the syntax. It also allows you to instantly create VBA from already made macros.

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One trick that you can use to help you with VBA syntax is to build what you want inside a macro, save it, right click on the macro, choose Save as Visual Basic Module, hit OK and then uncheck the two option boxes, next open the newly converted macro and you will see the Macro as VBA. For the most part you can Cut & Paste the code right into an event with little or no editing. I still "write" a lot of VBA code this way.

Two warnings about this method now. 1) Access does not allways choose the most efficient way to convert the code. For instance, a object in a form will get converted like this Forms!FormName!FieldName instead of the more efficiant Me.FieldName and 2) If you do all your coding using this Cut & Paste method you will not learn to write out code by hand. It is a good way to get started with VBA syntax though.

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You may also want to check out this recent thread on VBA Book recomendations.

Topic: Recommendation of a book