Access 2007 "BD Tracker"

After betting on the future success of Blu-Ray, I sold off my huge DVD collection leaving only approximately 90 classic films and a few hundred music DVDs. Since then, I’ve tweaked my old DVD tracking database in order to create a new “BD Tracker”. It’s just an Access 2007 database with forms and reports. The best feature is the basic ability to print a report of the BD covers.

It will only work with Access 2007 as it’s a .accdb file. I cannot convert it to an earlier version of Access because I just don’t have the time to keep playing with this.

I’m no expert with Access, so you won’t hurt my feelings to point out the flaws. Hopefully you can enhance it even further. If you want a copy of the files, pm me and I can email a .zip file.

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Some details on setup and usability…

If you do not store the entire contents of the zip file in the following directory, the opening macro (PlaySound) won’t work. If you know how to edit the related macro, of course you can set it up however you’d like.

Save the unzipped files to C:\Other\BDTracker

Create a desktop shortcut to the bdtracker.accdb file.

Vista users can change the icon on the new shortcut to make it use the bd_booth.ico found in C:\Other\BDTracker. The icon probably won’t work (or look good) in XP.

If you do not have the AprilleDisplayCapsSSi font installed, install it (.ttf file found in C:\Other\BDTracker).

For the cover art, make 300 dpi bitmap files that are 1” by 1”. I use Photoshop and resize the image to be 1” high while constraining the proportions. Then I simply make white the background color. Last, I just change the image size to be 1” wide as well.

I’m a big music collector and therefore you’ll see some fields and reports related to music BDs. If the Category is “Music”, it will show only on the separate music-based reports.

Adding the images works any of a few ways depending on your Windows and Office install options. It’s supposed to work by right clicking on the blank image field and choosing Insert Object > Create From File (select the .bmp file). But that doesn’t work on my new Vista install. Rather than troubleshoot Vista and Office I add the images by doing the following: Insert Object > Create New > Bitmap > Edit > Paste From (select the .bmp file) > Close the record entry form.

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I won't be able to offer any support, so I guess i should suggest that if you don't know how to use an Access 2007 database, this probably won't work well for you. I'm just sharing it in case you were thinking of making something similar. It might be easier to improve upon these raw materials.