Sunday, May 08, 2005

New Tool for Viewing MS Access Object Dependencies

I have just launched my latest Add-In and Wizard for MS Access.

MS Access Object Dependency Browser (ODB): the easy way to explore all objects, objet collections, and dependencies of your Access database.

Microsoft introduced a native object dependency viewer in Access2003, where objects can be viewed in separate treeviews: objects that depend on me, and objects that I depend on.

ODB goes much further:

  1. Supports Access 97, Access 2000, Access 2002, and Access 2003
  2. The two dependency views are integrated in the one treeview: for example in the screenshot below, ODB displays not only the fields collection for the Customers table, but linked tables and joins, and all other objects in the database that depend on the Customers table. Clicking on a join field will show the related to table/field and the type of join.
  3. Full dependency details are also displayed in the adjacent properties pane.
  4. Each object can be fully documented in a formatted Access report by clicking the Document button.
  5. Copy of all object details from the properties pane to the Windows clipboard by clicking the Copy to Clipboard button.
  6. Open database objects in design view with a click of the Design button.

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