Advanced picture control - AccessImagine

[Max D]

Greetings!

I am a representative of Bukrek publishing house. Recently
we developed an advanced picture control for MS Access
which solves most of picture-related problems and brings
new level of user experience to your solutions.

Thus, now its on testing stage and I will be glad if you,
advanced Access users, take part in judging pros and cons
of our creation. It looks something like this:



But its hard to get it statically, its better to take a look
at some action video (01:39). You can download shareware version


of control here (591 Kb).

I'd like to hear your opinion, feature suggestion or critics in this thread
at AccessForums.net. Also i'll be happy to answer any question.

[Max D]

There is small sample database where contact pictures thumbnails are shown in continuous form.



Techniques demonstrated here:

• thumbnails generation
• continuous forms with pictures
• on-demand AccessImagine installation
• instructing user how to turn active content on

If you notice some wrong behaivior (error messages or automatic component installation failure), please post it here.

[marianne]

you have a nice activex there. but I have a question, how much is the increase in size of the database where the picture is store in the table using the activex?

[Max D]

AccessImagine stores images in JPEG format, so size of database remains moderate all the time. Lets say, if you put some 5 megabytes of JPEG pictures in your database, it size will be 5 megabytes bigger (not like with pictures stored as OLE objects, that lead to enormous sizes due to saving picture as uncompressed bitmap). If user puts some other bitmap (BMP, GIF, scanning, pasting from buffer), it is JPEG-compressed too.

Additionally, usually you know what picture size you need in your database. You can specify maximum width and height of the picture, and AccessImagine will resample big images automatically - saving you additional space.

[marianne]

ok. so it does still increase the size. so what is the disadvantage if I just save the path of the picture and present the picture in the form or report using the path?

[Max D]

Sure it does - it have to store picture some way :-)

Its nice to store pictures externally, the only disadvantages are you need to maintain that image storage (keep it with database when moving it, update program image pathes when it relocates and so on) and add some additional treatment to retrieve images in some cases.

AccessImagine handles external image storage automatically once you need it. You need to specify StoragePath and bind control to text-type field (for filename storage) - thats all.

[Max D]

There was a serious bug - control was printed times smaller all the time.

Now it is fixed, and AccessImagine generate high-quality picture for printing - not that 72 dpi dotted ones others do.

[Max D]

Some late up - this component makes a lot people happy ))

[pgdavis2]

I agree! I just downloaded this control to create a photo directory and so far I'm amazed at its power and simplicity. Nice job and thanks!

[redbull]

I watched the video on the website, I see some very nice uses for this. I'm going to throw this out there... I wonder if you could import/export to/from active directory. I know that would meet a business need somewhere. But it is very impressive. I am thinking about a dynamic background feature for my existing applications..

[Max D]

I wonder if you could import/export to/from active directory?

AccessImagine has full set of VBA scripting commands - reference. What do you need exactly?

I am thinking about a dynamic background feature for my existing applications..

I think that AccessImagine will not help much with dynamic backgrounds, heh.