blueshell Forum

Dear helper

I had to uninstall MS-SQL Server when SQLEXPRESS that came bundled with Visual Studio 2005 no longer picked up its *.mdf files anymore.

I read about it somewhere that I had to instantiate my connections or so but I could not figure it out.

Anyway, after uninstalling MS-SQL which had me re-installing Visual Studio 205 all over again, now I am trying to convert my SQLEXPRESS *.MDF files to an Access *.MDB file and it will not work.

I tried your suggestions in your post and I believe it would have worked using my downloaded Blueshell Data Guy if I was working from MS-SQL Server and not SQLEXPRESS.

Is it possible to give this a try please?

When I tried it using Blueshell Data Guy, Data Link Properties->connection->select the database or the server: it threw a pop up with error message
as [DBNETLIB][CONNECTIONOPEN CONNECT()).]SQL SERVER DOES NOT EXIST OR ACCESS DENIED

And when I tried, FILE->NEW->File Database, for me to choose my *.MDF file, it does not show this file format in the list.

Am I doing something wrong here or is it just not possible with SQLEXPRESS

Many thanks

Emmanuel

Hi there,

As a follow up,I managed to connect to VS2005 SQLEXPRESS BY TYPING ./SQLEXPRESS IN NEW OLE DB CONNECTION-> MICROSOFT OLE DB PROVIDER FOR SQLSERVER->SELECT OR ENTER SERVER NAME:

AND WHEN CHOOSING FROM THE DROP DWON SELECT THE DATABASE ON THE SERVER, IT DOES NOT ALLOW ME SEE THE SCHEMAS I HAVE CREATED,I ONLY SEE BUILT-IN SCHEMAS AS MASTER, MODEL, MSDB AND TEMPDB.

Using Blueshell Data Guy, how do I get to the root of the schema I have created in VISUAL STUDIO 2005 SQLEXPRESS..

MANY THANKS

EMMANUEL

hi, i was having problem with my system database.

my first system is using vb.net as frontend and sql ofcourse as database (.mdf).

my second online system uses frontpage as frontend with access as database.(.mdb)

how can i connect the two using sql...

Can data from a mysql database be converted to Access?

Hi Ruth,

Yes, you can!

See "Exporting a table" in the help or in http://www.blueshell.com/EbDg.asp .

Act like this:

1. Create and open a new Jet database
   Select File→New→File Database... and specify a filename and filetype.
   


2. Open your mySQL database
   
   
   
   1. Start blueshell Data Guy
   
   
   2. Select File→New→OLE DB Connection, the Data Link Properties dialog appears.
   
   
   3. Select the mySQL provider and press Next.
   
   
   4. Enter the info for your connection and press Test Connection.
   
   
   5. When tested successfully, finally press OK.
   
   
   6. The connection is opened and you can now select your table from the tree view of the Connections window.
   
   
   
   


3. Export your table to the Jet database
   
   
   
   1. Define your source recordset
      Open a table from your SQL Server connection.
      
   
   
   2. Start the export
      Select Export from the Table menu or press the button from the toolbar.
      
   
   
   3. Choose the destination
      Simply click the Jet connection of the tree view.
      
   
   
   4. Press Start to start the export
      
   
   
   5. Edit the details of the export process
      Fine-tune the structure of the new table and specify which source fields will go to which destination fields.
      
   
   
   6. Do the transfer
      Press the OK button. Watch the progress bar. You may interrupt the process by pressing the Pause button. You may abort the process by pressing the Stop button. You may specify error actions when an error occurs. You may even watch the source and destination (or any other) table during the transfer.
      
   
   
   7. Decide whether to commit or to rollback
      Finally you may commit the whole transaction or you may rollback it.
   
   

If you have any further question, please don’t hesitate to contact me again.

Best regards,

Harry

Harry,

Can I export all my tables (struct and data) from one connection to another?
Now, I must export them one by one.

Thank you.

Sorry, but this is currently not supported.

Harry

Scrolling up and down through the grid causes problems when using the arrow keys or the Page-up page-down keys.

The grid does not scrol in the same way as when you would be using the mouse scroll up and down on the side of the grid

Any solution available

Len Heard

Hi Len,

There is a difference between scrolling by keys and scrolling using the scrollbar. The first moves the focus to a different record while the latter doesn't. Can you please specify the problems you've seen?

Best regards,

Harry

Blue Shell Errorguy says it is expired...I thought this was freeware.

Hi Cameron,

of course it is still free. Please download the current version from this site, I've just put it there.

Best regards,

Harry

Hi There,

Just downloaded & installed it and again it says expired. Why expire freeware?

Thanks,

Grant

There is again a fresh release available. Please download.

Thanks,

- Harry

Every time I touch the properties selection after I right-clicked on an atb control VB6 crashes...

After battling to get the product registered, it is now very frustrating... can you help me or did I waste my money buying Blueshell

Hi,

Fisrt of all, please let me say that we will do everything to turn the purchase of our software products into a profitable investion. Following the "try before buy" concept we offer everyone a free 40-days trial period. During this time you can fully test the product. Especially for blueshell Active Tables (bAt) you can try all design-time features and even compile applications containing bAt. If - for any reason - you want to rollback your purchase, please write me an email and we'll give you the money back.

When you're selecting properties, bAt retrieves information from your OLE DB provider. Please tell me the type and version of your OLE DB provider.

Please take a look at our sample Northwind shipped with bAt. If you're selecting Properties from an atb control, everything should work good (Note that a pop-up from the OLE DB provider appears twice).

Hope this helps. Please feel free to contact me again here at the forum or at service@blueshell.com .

Best regards,

Harry

For some reason this problems comes and goes... what I did notice over the past week is that when this situation arises VB6 crashes no matter what object I try to get the properties of!!

Otherwise... all seems to be fine!!

I'm a lot less frustrated... in fact I'm Happy!!!

What about report writer controls ... can you help

Thanx

Len Heard

invalid key when I tried to reg Active Tables PLEASE HELP ME!!!!

Downloaded version 3.0.13 trial version and then bought it

(personal and license info removed by forum master)

Apologies for this. We sent an email in reply to this issue with a new license key. Please don't post license keys here.

- Harry

I would want to know if it exists blueshell for VB5 and Access2000.
Moreover I would want to know if the names of the fields must be written
one by one or if also in VB5 they can be read from the fields of the database.
Excused my English.
Salutes and good job.

Hi Gchienna,

Yes, blueshell Active Tables (bAt) can be used with VB5 (or later) and Access2000 (or any other Access release). If you set the property atb.DisplayAll = True, the control will include all fields of your table or query automatically.

You can download bAt and test it! If you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to ask again!

Best regards,

Harry

I am creating a new table in MS SQL server (actually MSDE) using BlueShell. The new table has 3 fields - 1 "int" field and 2 "varchar" fields. In the table design window I am specifying "_int" and "_varchar" for the datatypes.

After I close my table, and then reopen it, the datatypes switch to "AutoNumber" and "_text".

Why can't BlueShell seem to remember the datatypes I specify?

Hi Sretlaw,

There are two reasons for your experience:

1. Currently, blueshell Data Guy (bDg) always uses autoincrement on any type that supports autoincrement. I agree, that this can be misleading and we're considering to change this behaviour. But there's always an escape: Choose the common type Long that maps to SQL Server's int.

2. In order to provide easy transfer from one database to another (e.g. from Oracle to SQL Server), bDg maps types. That is the reason why your _varchar columns are displayed as _text and _int columns are displayed as Long. Don't worry - they are still SQL varchar and int respectively. It is on our to-do-list to display the native types while retaining the mapping capabilities.

Thanks for your input!

- Harry

Hello database friends!

NEW SERVICE RELEASES

We have released new service updates of blueshell Data Guy and blueshell Active Tables. Download them from our website:

blueshell Data Guy 2.02.0010: http://www.blueshell.com/Product.asp?Prod=bDg&N=10

1. Better support of Sybase Adaptive Server Enterprise

blueshell Active Tables 3.00.0013: http://www.blueshell.com/Product.asp?Prod=bAt&N=13

1. Supports now Italian and Portuguese

VISUAL EXPERT - GET A FREE LICENCE

Visual Expert is designed for large VB projects and includes various features: it generates technical documentation, verifies the code's quality and helps exploring the project. This may help you if you work on some code you didn't write, or that you wrote several months ago.

Visual Expert also performs impact analysis: you can list all the components affected by a change in your code. It will be helpful to avoid the side effects that can be experienced when modifying a project.

I've tried Visual Expert personally and I'm very impressed. I ran it against our blueshell Active Tables code and it produced a clear outline of the whole project. We're planning to replace the FlexGrid used internally with a better (self-made) component. Using Visual Expert we can now better estimate the impact of that change on the project.

You can request your license of Visual Expert at http://visual-expert.net/request/request.php?TEMPL=promovb&TAG=HvB0904

(Caution: there is a time limitation to request this license!)

Best regards,

Harry

Harry von Borstel

HvB Computer Engineering

This is a great tool to generate tech documentation :-)
I also got some impact analysis done and as I have quite a few COM Components I used VE to analyze the links between my VB code and COM objects: TRULY IMPRESSIVE!

Real shame they’re only free for a year (well I guess it’s already lucky they are at all!)

About the Automatic Form View, probably I am missing something. On property page I changed FormLayout to Autocontrols (ViewsAllowed = both) but the automatic form was not created. I am using SqlSelect and SqlFrom to set up the data source (Connection is an ADODB.Connection and points to an Oracle database). Any ideas?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Marcelo

Hello Marcelo,

There are some caveats regarding the Automatic Form View:

1. Set atb.ViewsAllowed to Both or FormOnly


2. Set FormLayout to Autocontrols (currently only available thru Property Page "Style")


3. In the project's properties, tab "Make" clear the checkbox "Remove information about unused ActiveX Controls"


4. Automatic Form View works only with the compiled .exe, not when running from the VB IDE

You may view the help at http://www.blueshell.com/bathelp/?Page=FormLayout+Property.htm

Best regards,

Harry

could you help me pls!!!

my purpose want to get a UserControl which let user draw or design it at Run time.

if you would pls contacts me at chnarong@yahoo.com

Thanks for your help in advange.

Can you give me some details? What should your UserControl do? Should it work in a database-oriented application?

Best regards,

Harry

hi,

i am using oracle 9i with VB.net, i've written a program to access database for e.g emp table from VB.net by creating a connection through Microsoft OLE DB provider for Oracle, the connection built was successful, but when i later turned my computer on and executed the program... there was an error. Now when i tried to make connection through DataLink using the same procedure
it gives me an error:
"Test connection failed because of an error in initializing provider. Ora-12500: TNS listner failed to start a dedicated server process"

Why is it so?
please help me.
thanx.

Hi,

This seems to be a problem of your Oracle installation. Can you access your Oracle server via blueshell Data Guy? This should be a snap!

Best regards,

Harry

None of your emails works. Please advise

Sorry, we've had a hacker attack against our mail server. I hope it all works well, now.

Apologies,

Harry

I have a *.MDF files and need convert to *.MDB or *.MDE. It's possible ?

Thanks.

ELMAIL

Yes, it is easy using blueshell Data Guy! As I wrote in www.blueshell.com/forum?display=_632103593259218750 (MSDE=MS SQL Server - Use "File→New→OLE DB Connection"), *.MDF files aren't database files like *.MDB but files of MS SQL Server. You can't convert the files itself, but you can transfer each of the tables of your *.MDF to a new Jet/Access DB (*.MDB).

Act like this:

1. Create and open a new Jet database
   Select File→New→File Database... and specify a filename and filetype.
   


2. Open your SQL Server database
   
   
   
   1. Start blueshell Data Guy
   
   
   2. Select File→New→OLE DB Connection, the Data Link Properties dialog appears.
   
   
   3. Select "Microsoft OLE DB Provider for SQL Server" and press Next.
   
   
   4. Enter the info for your connection and press Test Connection.
   
   
   5. When tested successfully, finally press OK.
   
   
   6. The connection is opened and you can now select your table from the tree view of the Connections window.
   
   
   
   


3. Export your table to the Jet database
   
   
   
   1. Define your source recordset
      Open a table from your SQL Server connection.
      
   
   
   2. Start the export
      Select Export from the Table menu or press the button from the toolbar.
      
   
   
   3. Choose the destination
      Simply click the Jet connection of the tree view.
      
   
   
   4. Press Start to start the export
      
   
   
   5. Edit the details of the export process
      Fine-tune the structure of the new table and specify which source fields will go to which destination fields.
      
   
   
   6. Do the transfer
      Press the OK button. Watch the progress bar. You may interrupt the process by pressing the Pause button. You may abort the process by pressing the Stop button. You may specify error actions when an error occurs. You may even watch the source and destination (or any other) table during the transfer.
      
   
   
   7. Decide whether to commit or to rollback
      Finally you may commit the whole transaction or you may rollback it.
   
   

If you have any further question, please don’t hesitate to contact me again.

Best regards,

Harry

Hello! Harry,
I have read your article on coverting/exporting .mdf files from the SQL server to Access. So I hope the other way round is also possible. So can you please tell me how to go about that. In the sense, I have bulk of .mdb files and now I am trying to export them to SQL server. I am using VB 6.0 as my front end. So can you also tell me how to pull the information from SQL server using VB.
Looking forward for a quick reply.
Thanking You.

Santosh

Hi Santosh,

of course you can export from Access to SQL Server using blueshell Data Guy. The steps are almost the same: Open your Access DB, open your table, open your SQL Server connection, choose Export.

This is done in Data Guy and has nothing to do with VB (despite the fact that bDg is written in VB). You may do the whole job in a VB program using ADO.

- Harry

I can't figure out how to export my table to .mdb format to work with VB

Hi Ross,

it works like this:

Exporting a table

Using blueshell Data Guy you may export from any connection to any other connection. Note that bDg's connection concept includes the scribbling-block.

1. Define your source recordset
   Open a table and optionally define a filter. Do you want a more complex query? Use the Open Command... from the Table menu.
   


2. Start the export
   Select Export from the Table menu or press the button from the toolbar.
   


3. Choose the destination
   Simply click a table (if you want to append) or a connection (if you want to create a new table) of the tree view. Note that you may still use File → New or File → Open to create or open the destination connection while in export mode.
   Example: Export to a new table in a new .mdb file
   
   
   
   1. Choose File → New → File Database
   
   
   2. Specify file name (e.g. Newfile.mdb) and file type (e.g. Access 2000-2002/Jet 4 (*.mdb))
   
   
   3. The new database file will be shown at the connection tree and its name will automatically filled into "Destination connection"
   
   
   
   


4. Press Start to start the export
   


5. Edit the details of the export process
   Fine-tune the structure of the new table and specify which source fields will go to which destination fields.
   


6. Do the transfer
   Press the OK button. Watch the progress bar. You may interrupt the process by pressing the Pause button. You may abort the process by pressing the Stop button. You may specify error actions when an error occurs. You may even watch the source and destination (or any other) table during the transfer.
   


7. Decide whether to commit or to rollback
   Finally you may commit the whole transaction or you may rollback it. Note that some providers (including the scribbling-block) don't support transactions.

Best regards,

Harry

Hello,

I am working with an MSDE database, which is a .mdf file. I could not open it, nor did blueshell (trial version) see it as a database filetype. Are you familiar with this type of file and how to open it?

Thank you, Allan

Hi Alan,

The most important thing to mention here is this: MSDE is the same as MS SQL Server, but it is downloadable for free! To be honest, there is still a difference: MSDE comes without all the administration apps like Enterprise Manager. But with blueshell Data Guy you can administrate your MSDE as well!

If you want to connect to a database in a client server DBMS like MS SQL Server/MSDE you have to use File→New→OLE DB Connection. The File→Open only opens file databases like *.mdb etc. that are supported by Jet.

Act like this:

► Start blueshell Data Guy
► Select File→New→OLE DB Connection, the Data Link Properties dialog appears.
► Select "Microsoft OLE DB Provider for SQL Server" and press Next.
► Enter the info for your connection and press Test Connection.
► When tested successfully, finally press OK.
► The connection is opened and you can now browse and edit your tables, launch SQL statements and more...

If you have any further question, please don’t hesitate to contact me again.

Best regards,

Harry

As far as i know .mdf isn't an database file.
Its an image file created by alcohol102%.

I googled for "Alcohol102%" and found a recipe using 1 oz Gin, 1 oz Dry Vermouth and 1 dash Pernod for a drink called "Deep Sea". As far as I know, blueshells of course live in the sea, but not in the deep sea.

- Harry

Actually its both, as far as a database it is what MSDE uses.

Why I cannot create Access 95/97 database from blueshell?

Proceed like this:

- In blueshell Data Guy click File->New->File Database...
- The dialog Create new database file appears
- From the list of file types select Access 95-97/Jet 3 (*.mdb)
- Enter a filename
- Press Save
- The window Connections should now contain a new node for your file captioned like Jet Jet 3.x [filepath]
- If you cannot see the window Connections, please use View->Connections to display it

Hope this will help you.

Best regards,

Harry

Hello database friends!

NEW SERVICE RELEASES

Just before 2003 ends, we have released new service updates of our database products
blueshell Active Tables and blueshell Data Guy. Download them from
our website:

blueshell Active Tables 3.00.0009
http://www.blueshell.com/Product.asp?Prod=bAt&N=4

blueshell Data Guy 2.02.0004
http://www.blueshell.com/Product.asp?Prod=bDg&N=4

MORE DATABASES

blueshell Data Guy is known as an universal database editor. It handles
any database that supports the OLE DB or the ODBC interface standard. However, not
every database supports all details of the interfaces. For these cases, we have
added special handling for some databases to blueshell Data Guy. We have
now added such special support for Advantage DB Server and Sybase Anywhere.

FORM VIEW AND OLE FIELDS

We have built two great new features into blueshell Active Tables (bAt):
Automatic form view and OLE field editing. Using bAt 3.00.0009, we had to change
only one property in a form of our code of blueshell Data Guy; and now all
users of blueshell Data Guy (bDg) will benefit from it. bDg can display a
form view of each table. The form view allows the user to view and edit a record
using a form instead of using a line of the grid in grid view. If the table has
a blob field (adLongVarBinary), the contents of this field can be edited using any
OLE server like Paint, Word, Excel etc.

SQL COOK WILL HELP YOU

The new release shows you some features of the upcoming blueshell Data Guy
Professional. One of it is called SQL Cook. It assists you in entering
valid SQL commands for your database. Big databases like Oracle, SQL Server or MySQL
allow users to do almost all things with them using SQL commands. However, even
experts sometimes do have problems to remember the correct syntax. This is where
the SQL Cook comes into the game. You may even extend the set of syntax
rules (BNF) that the SQL Cook uses.

EDITING SCHEMA.INI ALLOWS SOPHISTICATED TEXT FILE IMPORT

Jet - and therefore blueshell Data Guy, too - observes the file Schema.ini
when using Textfile database tables (*.txt, *.csv, *.asc, *.tab etc.). For these
Text tables a new entry in the Table menu called "Schema.ini..." leads
you to the Schema.ini editor.

FOREIGN KEY

blueshell Data Guy now has Foreign Key support. If your table has
a foreign key (using a unique field of another table), you'll now get a drop-down
button on this field. Pressing this button, you'll get a drop-down-list of valid
values. There is another button with three periods: This will take you directly
to the foreign table!

The design window of bDg now has a Foreign column where you can
define table relationships. This is a feature of blueshell Data Guy Professional,
but you can test it now!

BINDING TO .NET SOURCES

The Atb control of blueshell Active Tables for .NET uses binding
to a special data source (AtbConnection) in order to observe table relationships.
However, sometimes it might be nice to bind directly to a .NET source. We've added
a new property Atb.DataSource that accepts .NET sources.

SOME MINOR POLISHING

We are always working hard to serve our customers and to provide you with reliable
software. Here are some of the minor new enhancements:

- Enhanced Help for VS .NET
- Supports Swedish and Finnish
- Foreign support for connection-less recordsets
- Better support of Win95, NT4
- Better support of displays with odd DPI

NEW NEWSGROUP AT www.blueshell.com/forum

There is a new forum at our website, where you can find information and even
start discussions about our products and services. Post your questions at
www.blueshell.com/forum or mailto:service@blueshell.com. You'll get
an answer usually within 24 hours (excluding weekend).

Happy New Year everybody!

Best regards,

Harry