The Northwind 2 Project

[Pat Hartman]

The worst software I am forced to use on a regular basis is the website for my online pharmacy. Their main display of my "active" prescriptions shows TWO prescriptions. Think about the bloat and wasted space. But they have a very prominent and unnecessarily huge header. I should be able to see a dozen, not that I need them but since they persist in showing old stuff, that would be rational. For example, my dentist gave me antibiotics last year and that prescription still shows and I can't even hide it. It has no refills so will never be used again. And then I see a prescription that had one refill left when I switched from Walgreens to ExperssScripts last year but is still showing and I can't get rid of it either or hide it even though I transferred the prescription last year and probably couldn't refill it at Walgreens if I wanted to. However, they will let me hide an active prescription with pending refills!!! Go figure. Then they send me emails months before they're going to refill something. Seems like the day after they fill a 90 day supply, they start sending me emails preparing me for them to refill the prescription 89 days in the future. But of course, just in case someone reads my emails or looks over my sholder, they refer to the prescription as "P" and since I have two P's, I have no idea what they're talking about. At least if they numbered them, I could look and see they are talking about the P that is #1 or the P that is #3. So much stupidity in so little space. I've tried to talk to people who might care and even offered to test for free but no, they'd rather just annoy me several times each month.

 

[gemma-the-husky]

Just to go back to Northwind Basic, and Northwind Advanced - the thing that struck me was just that I would expect NW Basic to be a subset of NW Advanced, so that a NW Basic user would find everything he understood still worked just the same when he moved up to NW Advanced.

This was going to be a longer reply, but I've just deleted most of it.

I just think a new database programmer should start with something much simpler than a business application. I imagine a lot of power users need business applications, and think they can build Access applications as easily as they can use Excel, but Access or indeed any multi-user business system can't be developed without a lot of thought in my experience.

It's like the Pharmacy software that @Pat Hartman mentioned. When you build it wrong from the start, it's very difficult to get it right afterwards, and they probably have now got 100's of clients all using the same software. Maybe Pat's pharmacy software has "reminder" settings to send reminders at a certain time before the prescription expires, so it may just be a minor training issue, but you would probably need to have a very close relationship with the practice to be allowed to get involved.

 

[sonic8]

In a business application, once the users have moved beyond the training/learning stage, it has little if any advantage.

But it is not "once"! This might be true for users working with that application all the time. But for users, which use such an application or certain functionality within it only once a week, once a month, or even once a quarter, the "learning stage" starts anew every time they use the application/functionality.

Screen space is always at a premium and more is better than less. As long as it is well designed and clear, more detail on a smaller number of screens usually makes a better system.

I agree with this for my own, personal user experience. However, I think it is questionable to assume this to be a general rule applying to all users.

You can easily have a dozen options in a drop down menu in a very small amount of screen space, which you can't easily do with a ribbon.

I don't understand your point. The amount of space a drop down control in the ribbon consumes is not significantly different from the amount of space required for a classic drop down menu item.

How much space would you save with this being a classic menu drop down?

50 pixels vertically, maybe 70px?
[Edit] I measured it. It's slightly more than I thought: ~5px per item, 88px total for the drop down displayed in the above screenshot, including the space for the larger ribbon button. [/Edit]
And actually, I prefer the slightly more generous spacing between the items with ribbon drop downs.

 

[GPGeorge]

I find the ribbon uses too much vertical screen space. I actually use A2003 menus and make them available through the add-ins. You can easily have a dozen options in a drop down menu in a very small amount of screen space, which you can't easily do with a ribbon.

For much the same reasons I use A2003 switchboards, which I believe are more flexible. I can easily have many more options on a page (30), and I can leave selected options blank to make the option grouping more clear. I didn't really understand the action macros (is that the right term?) in the newer versions of the switchboard, and never bothered with them as a result.

The autoexec macro is like gold dust. Its far easier for a slick interface than trying to build code into the startup form. Please never drop it.

One of the key things we learned in developing this version is just how important it really is. Watch for it when it finally becomes available. I will go so far as to predict that using an AutoExec macro the way one of the other team members implemented it will become a best practice at some point, with regard to the question of Trusted Locations.

 

[GPGeorge]

Spoiler: etc

The worst software I am forced to use on a regular basis is the website for my online pharmacy. Their main display of my "active" prescriptions shows TWO prescriptions. Think about the bloat and wasted space. But they have a very prominent and unnecessarily huge header. I should be able to see a dozen, not that I need them but since they persist in showing old stuff, that would be rational. For example, my dentist gave me antibiotics last year and that prescription still shows and I can't even hide it. It has no refills so will never be used again. And then I see a prescription that had one refill left when I switched from Walgreens to ExperssScripts last year but is still showing and I can't get rid of it either or hide it even though I transferred the prescription last year and probably couldn't refill it at Walgreens if I wanted to. However, they will let me hide an active prescription with pending refills!!! Go figure. Then they send me emails months before they're going to refill something. Seems like the day after they fill a 90 day supply, they start sending me emails preparing me for them to refill the prescription 89 days in the future. But of course, just in case someone reads my emails or looks over my sholder, they refer to the prescription as "P" and since I have two P's, I have no idea what they're talking about. At least if they numbered them, I could look and see they are talking about the P that is #1 or the P that is #3. So much stupidity in so little space. I've tried to talk to people who might care and even offered to test for free but no, they'd rather just annoy me several times each month.

Very briefly, my bank did something similar with their "redesigned, IMPROVED, really cool" download page. It used such large icons and text that you had to scroll two pages to select the download options at the top and the submit button at the very bottom. Even on a high resolution monitor! My guess was that they designed it that way to accommodate smart phones, where those enormous buttons fit under one fingertip and scrolling is expected.

Fortunately, enough people complained that they launched a "redesigned, IMPROVED, really cool and actually functional" version fairly quickly.

 

[GPGeorge]

Watch this space for a notice about the imminent release of the Northwind 2.0 Starter and Developer Access Showcases.

 

[JMongi]

Our own personal thought, needs and opinions aside, what a great accomplishment! Kudos to you and everyone else involved and let me say thank you very much!

 

[jdraw]

George,
I attended DAAUG last night. Quite impressed with the presentation and discussion. The consistency within the showcases is very comforting, and I can just imagine the deliberation (and learning) along the way to make it so.
Very well done. Great accomplishment.

 

[GPGeorge]

George,
I attended DAAUG last night. Quite impressed with the presentation and discussion. The consistency within the showcases is very comforting, and I can just imagine the deliberation (and learning) along the way to make it so.
Very well done. Great accomplishment.

Thank you for the kind words. I'll pass them along to the team at our meeting this afternoon.

It was a rewarding experience; I'm really grateful to have been part of it. I hope the greater Access community finds it useful as well.

Look for an official launch post from Microsoft in the coming days.

Any feedback

 

[omar.aslaoui]

a link to a download will be nice !!!

 

[GPGeorge]

The current plan is to be able to announce the release of the templates -- Northwind Starter and Northwind Developer--at the Access Devcon

a link to a download will be nice !!!

It will be available as soon as Microsoft is sure that the release candidate is stable, complete and has met all of the accessibility and security requirements. You'll get it in the same way you currently get templates.

 

[NauticalGent]

Microsoft is sure that the release candidate is stable, complete and has met all of the accessibility and security requirements.

As if...

 

[GPGeorge]

As if...

We're doing the best we can....

----Added Context ----

As you know, the work is being done by a team of non-Microsoft volunteers, but we still have to meet the requirements of other templates provided by Microsoft. For example, they have standards regarding fonts and color contrasts for accessibility . We had to design to those standards and get sign-off from their people. And make changes as they required to get that approval.

 

[NauticalGent]

I hear you, but having them QA your work...that's like me giving batting advice to Hank Aaron...

 

[GPGeorge]

Anyone who's ever been tasked with QA will probably back up the position that having more review, rather than less review, is a Good Thing.

 

[isladogs]

The team involved with creating NW2 are all highly skilled but it should be recognised that this was done by volunteers in their free time
Although I wasn't involved, I know from experience how long such joint efforts can take

Anyway, the official release of NW2 is imminent. However, its available now from Access if you search for it

 

[omar.aslaoui]

The team involved with creating NW2 are all highly skilled but it should be recognised that this was done by volunteers in their free time
Although I wasn't involved, I know from experience how long such joint efforts can take

Anyway, the official release of NW2 is imminent. However, its available now from Access if you search for it
View attachment 107623

I can't get it from access ! can you please attach the template in this thread ?
thanks

 

[isladogs]

Both are definitely available in the current version of A365.

I've only looked at the 2 new templates very briefly but my initial impressions are very positive.
A lot of work went into making these 2 new versions both wide ranging for different levels of user but also to show good practice.

It wouldn't be appropriate for me to attach them here as they are not my files.

 

[omar.aslaoui]

So,
it is taking a year to complete this?

That has nothing to do with the volunteers, imo. It's probably a red tape more than volunteers time or skill, etc.

To provide some food for thoughts, two ppl created this in 10 hrs or so and still wip. Will be finished in next 10 hrs.

northwind.pythonanywhere.com

Anyone knowing current Northwind Template should be familiar with this app. As a bonus,
quite a few steps on Help are documented for a "would be" developer.

Can't wait to see the NT2 tho!

thanks for the link

 

[baderms]

I was able to download the templates 2 days ago using Access 2019.