Creating the database - primary key, creating tables

The new "MikeVideo" database To your keyboards. START ACCESS! Do you want to open an existing database or create a new one. If this is your first session, you want to create a new database. And, because you want to learn something from the ground up, you won't use the wizards, pages and projects which are the database-creation templates. Once you've mastered the con

Defining Table relationships - referential integrity, primary and foreign keys

Identifying the tables After Lesson 3, these are the tables you should have. Note that there are several fields in both tables that refer to Links to other table. The reason for that is that Relationships are very powerful in database design. Let's look at the case o

Entering data into Tables - data view, sorting and ordering

  Working with the data grid When you have a large quantity of data to input, the data grid is not a bad way to go. You normally won't use this technique for day-to-day operations - we will create forms for that - but it is useful at startup. You will have to modify some of the properties of the fields in the table to make the best use of all the functions. It is recommended to test the changes on a

Creating data-entry forms - data validation, default values

Working with the AutoForm Wizard In the previous lesson we used the data grid to get information into the tables. Although useful in some situations, it is not very practical for day-to-day operations because it is not a format that non-programming types are comfortable with. Everybody is familiar with forms. So, to display information from the tables or to input data into the tables we'll create a form for every table in the database.

Building simple Queries - sorting, selection criteria, working with dates

Finding answers to questions Now, let's say we've created the Movies table and, using the appropriate Form, we've input the movies that we carry. Hopefully we have thousands of entries in that table to give our customers the greatest choice possible. And, if you look at the example below you will note that we usually have several copies of each movie in stock. Each VHS tape or DVD carries a different item number but the rest of