RB's Cellar Master - Tips and Workarounds  
     
  Friday 13 May 2008:  Bottle Size default

The latest version of the database has a field for Bottle size (in ml), with a default of zero.  Since most bottles are 750ml these days, you can do the following to set that as the default.

1. Go to the folder where the files are installed (prob. c:\cm)

2. Double-click on cmd2003.mdb (the data file)

3. Right-click on the Cellar table and select Design view from the menu

4. Scroll down to the Bottle Size field and click on it to select the field.

5. In the section at the bottom of the table design window there is a Default Value field set to 0.  Change it to 750.

6. Save and close the table, or just close it, and click on the Save option when it prompts you.

Next time you create a new entry the Bottle size will default to 750.

 

 
  Sunday 13 April 2008:  Access 2007 problem

Two users who have installed Access 2007 either as a first install or upgrade have had problems running the version of RB Cellar Master compiled with Access 2007.  The error message is: “Database is in an unrecognisable format – It may have been created with a later version of Access than the one you are using. Upgrade to the current version.”

The solution that worked in both cases was to revert to the version compiled with Access 2003.  I don't know what causes the problem, but in the past that error message has proved to mean what it says and there is possibly some rogue setting or component from a prior version of Office hanging around.

My suggestions are to uninstall any prior version of Office when upgrading and if you are doing a new install, don't try to be too smart during a custom install and don't de-select components unless you are sure you know what you are doing.

The two times it happened so far have been both running Office 2007 on Windows XP SP2, so that may be the deciding factor, although it should depend on the version of Office only.

 

 
  Sunday 3 February 2008:  Wine-growing Region/Area data

A recent new user, Curt A in California kindly sent me an Excel workbook with some Country/State/Area data for USA, Spain, France and Italy.  If you have an interest in this data you can download the workbook here.

To load the data, you can just copy and paste into the relevant tables - State and Area.  To gain access to the tables, simply double-click on your data file - cmd2002.mdb or cmd2003.mdb and and then double-click on the table name.

Once the table is open, select the matching set of data in the relevant sheet of the Excel workbook (the number of columns and column headings will tell you which is relevant to the table you have open, do State first, then Area).

Once you have copied the Excel data to the clipboard, go back to Access and click on the row-selector for the blank line at the end of the table, then press Ctrl-V or right-click and select Paste.

Repeat the above for each set of State data from countries you want to load and then do the same thing for Area data.

 

 
  Wednesday 16 January 2008: Possible report problem with Access 2007 and new version.

It seems Microsoft didn't do as good a job of backwards compatibility with 2007 and 2003 as I thought.  The new version I've been distributing to run with both Access 2003 and 2007 was compiled with Access 2003.  It mostly works with Access 2007, but there are also some problems with reports not running.  You may have these symptoms:

1. The default quick reports do not preview and generate an error message.

2. The Advanced reports do not preview and do not display any error message.

If you have these symptoms please email me and I'll send a version of the program that has been compiled with Access 2007, it seems to fix these issues.

 

 
  Friday 11 January 2008: Datasheet query bug.

I've noticed that one of the Datasheet Queries ("Purchases by Merchant by Year") has an unwanted restriction to return only data from 2002-2004, probably because I accidently saved a specific query one day.  I don't know how many past versions have this problem (maybe none), but early copies of the new version (based on my own working version) sent out so far including today have this problem.  The restriction can be removed as follows:

  1. Run the query.
  2. Right-click on the top title bar of the datasheet and select Design View from the context menu.
  3. Delete the Selection criteria ">2001 and < 2005" from the first field in the query ("Year")
  4. Close the Query Design View and select "Yes" to the Save or discard prompt, this will save the proper version of the query.
  5. Run the query again to confirm additional dates appear.
 
 

This is a free system and I intend it to remain so in the future, but it embodies substantial development effort on my behalf and any donations will be gratefully accepted.  You can make a donation securely via PayPal, even if you don't have a PayPal account.

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