What is a common front end instead of Access?

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What is a common front end instead of Access?

Brandon_Green

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May 27, 2004 at 11:52 am

#85685

We have been running Access as our choice of front end for some time, but still we run into limitations.
What would be some options for a front end? Pros...cons...
Brandon

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SQLBill SSC Guru Points: 51440 More actions · Answer 1

Depends on what you want the front-end application to do....

Crystal Reports is great for making reports and charts.

-SQLBill

Terry Lewis Valued Member Points: 66 More actions · Answer 2

Visual Basic uses essentially the same VBA as Access so your current front end could be converted to VB6 quite easily. VB6 gets over most of the Access limitations and is more powerful.

.NET is another possible answer. There is more of a learning curve as VB.NET is quite different to VB6. However you also have the ability to develop using ASP.NET for a browser based solution.

If you want the opportunity to learn new technologies (and who doesn't) then perhaps .NET is the best choice.

Robert Stewart Hall of Fame Points: 3399 More actions · Answer 3

What are the limitations that you think you are running into?

I have been using Access against JET and SQL Server since 1.0 and have generally found the limitations to be in the imagination of the developer and not in the product.

Having said that, I am also working heavily with .Net for web development and would never recommend using the tools that come with Access (Data Pages, to do anything. .Net is the wave of the future and, personally, I would not recommend VB6 for any project going into the future.

Robert

Ken Klaft-80806 Say Hey Kid Points: 693 More actions · Answer 4

Maybe I missed the point, but there are a handful of free query tools "out there" that seem to be pretty popular. I did a quick Google and came up with CuteSQL, SQLQuery, SQLRunner, SQLUserInterface, Toad for SQL and WinSQLLite. I can't vouch for any of these but a quick eval should shake out at least one decent tool. It looks like WinSQL also makes a commercial product that sounds pretty good.

If you were referring to development environments, then I'll go with "yeah. What those other guys said." <grin>

Robert Stewart Hall of Fame Points: 3399 More actions · Answer 5

I have tried the Toad for SQL Server and was not able to get it to work correctly. I use Toad a lot for Oracle and have never had problems with it in Oracle.

There are also some SQL windows programs out there made in Access. 🙂

Antares686 SSC Guru Points: 125444 More actions · Answer 6

For choice of front end user application IIS and other Web Servers serving web pages are actually the majority used method. But any language is pretty well capable (C, Delphi, VB, other). It is all a matter of what you need to do, what time frame you have to do it in, the cost you are willing to pay (in some case this isn't a concern), and how you want it done.

Victor J Ramos SSC-Addicted Points: 497 More actions · Answer 7

I agree with Robert when MS ACCESS is used as a front-end to an OLTP database. If you intend to use it as a front-end to a multidimensional data structure (OLAP CUBE) you may find limitations. There are several tools that work well and you may like to evaluate before you commit to one. Here are some:

- MICROSOFT Data Analyzer

- Cognos

- Crystal Enterprise

- BRIO

Robert Stewart Hall of Fame Points: 3399 More actions · Answer 8

Brandon,

You still have not said anything about teh limitations that you said you were running into with Access. I would like to know what they are. I have been using Access since 1.0 and have found that I can do anything with it that I wanted. Sometimes I had to think and work on it for a while, but that was a limitation of my knowledge, not the tool.