This Access Europe meeting will be on Wednesday 7 Jan 2026 starting at 18:00 UK time (6PM UTC) and finishing at about  19:30 (7.30PM)

The start time is equivalent to 19:00 (7PM) in Central Europe and 10AM in Seattle / PST

Please note that the UK will be on Winter Time (UTC) for this meeting. For local times, please check World Time Buddy

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Further details of this session to follow. Do join us

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Topic outline:

Over the past couple of years, Microsoft has been gradually rolling out a significant update to the old style message box used in all Office apps for built-in messages. Gone are the monochrome and rather forgettable messages of the past. Now we have colorful messages that catch users’ attention more effectively.

Old Style Delete Message                                                                                                   New Style Delete Message

This has been a gradual change and, unfortunately, the new style dialog has not yet been ported across to the messages that developers create using code.

UK developer, Neil Sargent set out to replicate the new style message boxes in Access.
In doing so, he discovered a number of design features which are likely to be both interesting and useful to other developers.

In today’s presentation, Neil will demonstrate his new style message box and explain the journey taken to get there.

This will include:
1)   History of MsgBox with Access
2)   Using a VBA function name to override VBA with your own code.
3)   Backwards compatibility issues and limitations.
4)   Competition: Spot the difference!
5)   How to get the new MS Fluent UI icons, how to process them and use them to best effect.
6)   The Title parameter.
7)   MessageBeep API.
8)   Borderless forms. DragFormWindow code with credit to Colin Riddington.
9)   The Shadow form trick.
10)   Enhanced Access style MsgBox formatting.
11)   Help and hyperlinks.
12)   CanShrink and CanGrow for forms. Textbox resizing. A tribute to Stephen Lebans.
13)   The Lorem Ipsum resizing trick.
14)   Scrollbars and clipboard.
15)   Timeouts, rich text and other possibilities.
16)   A new style Input Box?

The session will include an example database with all the code needed to replicate the new style messages in your own apps

Background:

Neil Sargent is a professional developer with over 25 years experience developing applications using Microsoft Access.

His company Smart IT Ltd specialises in the development of bespoke computer applications for small and medium businesses, primarily using Microsoft Access.
These often include tight integration with Outlook, Word, Excel and 3rd party applications such as Sage Accounts.

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IMPORTANT NOTE: 

All sessions will be recorded and later uploaded to the AccessUserGroups channel on YouTube: AccessUserGroups.org – YouTube.

If you do not wish to be part of the recording, please ensure your webcam and microphone are both switched off.

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