Welcome to The Linux Page

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This site is a collection of my own work with Linux. Certain things are easy, others take time to decipher and if I ever need to repeat the work (which usually happens!), then I need to remember everything by memory or... have a site with all the steps taken and to take again.

The following are my most recent posts:

MS-Access Record Locking

The MS-Access system has a limited way to lock records...

This is done within what is called the Recordset object. That object has a field called LockType.

Available lock types are Optimistic, Pessimistic, Table. The last one prevents all access from anyone else (read/write lock). Pessimistic locks let other users read the locked data, but not write (write-only lock). Optimistic locks do nothing (in other words, no locking.)

The following is a synopsis for this locking feature:

InsertNode module for Drupal

This page is an extension to the InsertNode module available on Drupal.

I include here a set of files that one may be interested in to enhance the experience with that module.

If you have another file, let me know, and I might very well include it here (After reviewing the code!)

Thank you.

fckeditor-6.x-2.x-plugin.tar.gz

This file adds two prompts to help enter your [node: ... ] tag. This is based on Zewa's work.

fckeditor-6.x-1.x-plugin.zip

Per Row Highlighting in MS-Access Forms

Today, I found out that the current row in a MS-Access form is not so current.

Somehow, it can extract the data from the current row, but trying to change some parameters on the current box actually affects the entire column. This is because a ContinuousForm includes only one box per column and that box is repeated for each row.

Radio Buttons in MS-Access

Radio Button in MS-Access

In MS-Access, it is possible to make use of Radio Buttons. They work just like in any other system. The last selected radio button represents the result of the selection. The problem is: how do you make multiple radio buttons work in concert?

Your first reaction is to simply add some radio buttons on your form. That looks fine. Seems to work actually. Somehow they are shown in a "3rd state". That state actually shows you that the radio buttons are not initialized. So it is not helpful in any way.

So... Now we have a radio button and... you try to ...

Strong typing for a Recordset failing

When I looked around for samples on how to query a MS-Access database using an SQL statement, it was telling me to declare a record set variable of type Recordset.

Problem: Associate, easy! De-associate... but how?!

The association of a label with another widget is easy to obtain. You want to do that especially if you want to hide the widget or apply some similar effects to it so both, the widget and its label are affected. This is especially true if you hide the widget.

Spaces in database column names

Most of the database systems I've worked with do not support having column names with a space.

Oracle and PostgreSQL accept double quotes for that purpose (i.e. "First Name").

MS-Access and MySQL accept back quotes (i.e. `First Name`)

Visual Basic accepts square brackets (i.e. [First Name])

Obviously, this is just plain craziness! One should just never use spaces in such a place since it completely breaks the object oriented capabilities of pretty much any sensical language.

Error: Too few parameters. Expected 1.

What a strange error!

You execute an SQL statement with the usual OpenRecordset() function in MS-Access. So as usual, you put one parameter to the function, the SQL order.

You have written 100 of those before and had no problems.

Today, the last one you wrote says:

Too few parameters. Expected 1.

You look at this latest statement and your older statements and you just plainly don't get it. There is one parameter, it is the SQL string and it looks just fine.

So? What's wrong?

Simple! The error actually means a field name in the SQL statement is wrong. Yeah! That's how you need

ComboBox bug

I created a form in MS-Access and noticed, after a little while, that a ComboBox would not render properly.

The problem is pretty simple, I marked the combo box as having a Normal Back Style. When I first open the window or when I click in that ComboBox, it works and renders the specified Back Color. That's great, but that's not exactly the solution, is it?

The box has a Fore Color of Black (that's the color of the text). That Fore Color is used because the background is expected to be either gray or green. Either way, black shows pretty well.

MS-Access weird = [Field] error...

I started using MS-Access not too long ago, but this one is really getting me each time.

Once in a while I get this error telling me that the Form is messed up, that a field or a macro just do not match. That macros are missing even though I ask the Form to call the corresponding functions. And some other strangeness like those.

Unfreeze your Mouse when it Froze

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Radio Button in MS-Access

Problem: Associate, easy! De-associate... but how?!