Storing user preferences

#11

Thanks Larry,

Storing user preferences in the frontend doesn't seem right as the
preferences are lost when a new frontend is deployed.

I think I will store the preferences values in a backend's table, present
all preference options in unbound fields and as Bob advised add/change
values with update and append queries.

Lars

"Access Developer" <accdevel (AT) gmail (DOT) com> schreef in bericht
news:86dg86F8alU1 (AT) mid (DOT) individual.net...

Quote:

In the past, I've used a table in the front-end, a table in the back-end,
and an .ini file for this purpose. The first worked well for individual
preferences if the user only ever used the app from their own computer.
The second worked well when users might use the app from different
computers, and just as well if they only used one.

It's been so long since I used the .INI that I really don't remember what
I thought about using it -- back in Access 2.0 days. There were (are?
don't know if they were dropped in Vista and Win 7) APIs for accessing
personal and database-level INIs.

You can use the <the very thought of it makes me queasy> Registry, or
define Properties for the database (front-end?) to store preferences --
but I haven't used the last two.

--
Larry Linson, Microsoft Office Access MVP
Co-author: "Microsoft Access Small Business Solutions", published by Wiley
Access newsgroup support is alive and well in USENET
comp.databases.ms-access

"Lars Brownies" <Lars (AT) Browniew (DOT) com> wrote in message
news:htpit3$2rhe$1 (AT) textnews (DOT) wanadoo.nl...
I want users to be able to store personal preferences for paths, layout,
report dates, etc. I'm thinking to store the info in the following tables

tblUser
UserID*
UserLastnam
etc.

tblUserPreference
UserID*
PreferenceID*

tblPreference
PreferenceID*
PreferenceName
PreferenceGroup
PreferenceValue

Problem is that I need to store values of different data types in the
field PreferenceValue.

My questions are:
- How do I deal with the diffences in data type? Should I add a field for
every data type?
- If I enter a new user should I automatically add all Preferences to him
or should I only add a preference if he wants to differ from the default
value?
- Or shouldn't I bother with normalisation in this case?

Thanks,

Lars

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Storing user preferences

comp.databases.ms-access comp.databases.ms-access

Re: Storing user preferences - 05-30-2010 , 09:35 AM