Version Control System (msaccess-vcs-integration)
for Microsoft Access Database Development
Supports Microsoft Access 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 365
About
Easily export your Microsoft Access Database objects for use with a version control system like GitHub or GitLab. (Allows you to track code changes over time, and even collaborate with other developers on the same project.)
This project works as a Microsoft Access add-in, allowing you to click a menu item to export the objects and source code from the currently open Microsoft Access Database.
Coming in Version 4.0 - Ribbon Integration with 64-bit Support!
Thanks to some fantastic work by Wayne Phillips on the twinBASIC project, we now have a practical (and easy) way to integrate a custom ribbon interface at the application level! This is implemented as a thin COM AddIn wrapper that passes commands to the Access VBA add-in. The ribbon takes this project to a new level in providing a user-friendly experience to developers and works in both 32 and 64-bit versions of Microsoft Access.
Development Focus
This project is used internally to manage the development of numerous Microsoft Access databases, some of which are very complex with hundreds of components. The focus of this development branch is primarily in the following areas:
- Intuitive user interface for managing code exports and related options, instead of having to set all these options in code or remember commands to run in the immediate window.
- Optimal performance, even with very complex databases. This is largely achieved through the Fast Save option which only exports the changed files. Most databases can be exported in a few seconds or less.
- Extensive support for different types of database components beyond the standard database objects. See Supported Objects for more details on what can be exported from a database.
- Build From Source - Using this add-in you can actually build a database entirely from exported source files. This allows collaborative development where changes can be managed at the source code level. See this this link for additional details.
- Code quality - I am doing my best to continually refine and organize the code into efficient and well commented logical flows. This is a work in progress, but I feel it is critical to the long-term success of the project.
- ADP Project support. While this is an outdated technology, there are some of us that still support and maintain complex ADP projects. This tool has been extended to export objects from ADP projects, including server-side SQL object details.
Installation
Simply download the add-in from the Releases page, and run the file. It will install or update the add-in for you. Additional notes on installation can be found on the project wiki.
Contributing
Interested in adding a feature or fixing a bug? Issues and pull requests are welcome for this project. This page describes some guidelines and the types of contributions would be most helpful.
Development Roadmap
Since there are several forks of this project on GitHub, I thought it might be helpful to give some insight into the long-term direction I am taking with this fork. Below are some of the changes I am looking to implement in the future:
-
Finish an automated testing process where a complex sample database can be exported, reconstructed, exported again, and compared with the original export to ensure that the build process is fully constructing the database from the exported source files.
-
Build out an automated deployment workflow using a GitLab runner that is triggered on a commit to automatically build, test, and deploy a database project. Discussion on this idea can be found here.
Related Projects
This project was originally forked from timabell/msaccess-vcs-integration.
The following forks and projects may also be of interest: