Description

If you develop software, you know how hard it is to update your applications once they're deployed. With every new version of your application, you may have to send out large database files to your users to update their existing versions. Some of your customers may even make changes to the application themselves, causing problems when you try to upgrade them to a new version. To make things easy, you just want to give them the latest changes, not a whole new database.

Introducing Surgical Strike, the first product that lets you precisely update your Microsoft Access program and data databases efficiently and effectively. Surgical Strike is used by professional developers to create a small .MDB or .MDE file containing only the updates to an application. This patch file can be executed by your users to upgrade their Access data files and applications.

Remotely Update Your Applications

Once you've created your patch file, you can e-mail the file to your users or place it a website or server for download. Imagine being able to change lines of code in a module, change properties of a control or object, add or modify fields in a table, replace a form, add a new record, etc... This is not a simple search and replace utility. It does much, much more and drastically reduces application maintenance and support costs.

Features

• Update applications with changes only, not a whole new MDB
• Update with small files instead of large ones
• Automatically creates backup copies of existing databases before making changes
• Works with front end applications and also backend data
• Includes both a patch manager and patch installer
• Use the developer wizard interfaces to make definition easy
• Includes a simple patch installation for the end user
• Maintain configuration control with version numbers
• Print or view detailed documentation on changes to be made by the patch
• Works with Access 97 and Access 2000

What You Get

Surgical Strike includes the following:

• Surgical Strike software on CD with all source code
• 90 days free technical support
• Example files to help you get started
• Printed user guide

Overview

Surgical Strike loads as an add-in (.MDA) to Access 97 or Access 2000. You start with an empty database or a previously created Surgical Strike patch file. You run the add-in and a wizard-like interface will prompt you for information about the patch. The wizard will first ask you for the source .MDB file that contains any new objects you want to include in the patch. You select the new objects from a list of objects in the source .MDB. If you specify an object that already exists in the target .MDB to be patched, the object will be replaced. Otherwise, the new object will just be added. If the object is a table, you can also specify if the table should be put in the front end or the back end file. You can also create a list of objects that you wanted deleted in the target .MDB.

If you do not want to replace an entire form, report or module but instead just want to replace VBA code in an application, Surgical Strike can do this too! You can add or delete a specific procedure as well as add, delete or replace lines of code. You enter the type of object, name of the object, and the code to be deleted, added or replaced. Updating procedures or lines of code is useful if your user has customized the look of a form and you only need to change some code behind it. This allows you to incorporate your changes without overwriting their copy of the form.

You can make detailed table or query changes, including adding or deleting fields or changing field properties. Imagine adding a new field to a table without affecting the data in the table.

For even more specific and detailed type changes, you can define property changes for the database, tables, table fields, queries, query fields, forms, form controls, reports and report controls. Without replacing the objects, you can make changes that will affect how the application looks and runs. By specifying to the wizard a reference .MDB, a list of objects is made available making defining changes easy.

In addition to changing objects, object properties and VBA code, you can change the data in tables by specifying one or queries to be run. These action queries give developers the ability to fix or correct data errors that may exist in tables.

Finally, you specify a version for the patch. This is stored in the target .MDB files as a custom database property. When Surgical Strike is executed on the target .MDB, the version number is checked first. The patch will run only if the version number matches. The version number is stored in both front end and back end databases so configuration control problems are eliminated.

At any time while the wizard is running, you can choose to print a report of the patch as it is defined. This provides the developer and user the information needed to make sure the patch definition is correct. It also provides documentation for the version change. After defining the patch, you then finish the process by creating the .SSP file. All the objects needed as well as the support objects to make the changes are put in to the .SSP database with a user interface to run Surgical Strike. The .SSP can then be distributed to users. When the users run Surgical Strike, they are prompted for the file and file location for the front end application. Surgical Strike will automatically find any back end databases based on the links established in the front end database. The user does not need to do anything else, Surgical Strike will take care of the rest.

System Requirements:
Access 97 or Access 2000 • Runs on Windows 95 and higher, Windows NT 4 with service packs