Comic Book Access Database

[Lethal_Collector]

Hey all,

 

I thought maybe someone may find this useful (probably more for non graded comics that aren't organized through this board, but it's setup to organize all your comics ). It's an Access database file, compatible with Open Office and all Microsoft Access versions 2003, where you can organize, list and search for your comics. You basically just enter in your comic book name, issue, publisher, what box number it's in (or letter, etc.) if it has a grade, yada yada.

 

If the comic isn't graded or has a signature then just put a '-' and move on. Very simple. Then run the provided form and search by publisher, issue number, signature series, grade...however you want. There's even a column for stating where the comic is (bookshelf, cabinet, friend has it).

 

Let me know if you have any questions or find any bugs. If you want to add a new publisher to the list, then open the ComicFormField table and write it in and it will become searchable. When you first open it, you will need to click 'Enable This Content'. I can assure you no harm will be done to your computer. But you may want to add the location of the file as a trusted location under the access options to avoid the pop every time you open it. Reminder: You will need to delete my comics in the Comics Table.

 

I have a more extensive database for my video games, movies and computer discs if anyone is interested and Uber OCD organized like myself

 

You can download the database here.

 

Click here to download the Access Database with pictures enabled.

 

Here are some screenshots of it in action if it helps:

 

 

UPDATE - Per request, I have updated the database to include pictures on the report page. You will need to insert the pictures in the "Image" column of the Comics Table:

- Right click the cell and select Insert Object

- Click on Create From File

- Click Browse and find the location of your picture (it must be a .bmp picture) and click Open

- You can click the 'Link' checkbox if you DON'T want to embed the picture into the database (embedding pics makes the DB get larger)

- Click OK

- Lather, Rinse, Repeat

 

Jerome

[ThreeSeas]

Jerome,

 

I was just thinking of this topic earlier today. The only database I had used for my comics inventory was Dataperfect and that program is now 21 years old. I last did an inventory of my comics in 1992.

 

I have used Access 2000 and even made a program at work so we could run sales reports, but I never had much luck finding time to make an Access program for my comics. I poked around a bit with it but never made a good one.

 

I shall have a look at yours (thank you) and I may modify it a bit for what I want. My Dataperfect program's main page is shown below. It is a pretty simple inventory program but it is so old you cannot use a mouse as it was designed before mice became widely used.

I have to use the tab key and F7 to go back and forth. The top menu pops up when I hit the up arrow while reviewing the title. As you can see I am in dire need of an update. I had forgotten about the program until I was doing some cleaning last winter and found a 3.5" disk that it was on.

 

Now all I got to do is go find a converter so I can use your program with my Access 2000.

[Lethal_Collector]

Woah! That looks so Nostalgic, especially if you have some 3.5" floppies. I have a pair of Word Perfect floppies laying around somewhere, hehe. Yea feel free to modify it as you need, I'm sure there's lots of cool tweaks you can make for GA's, SA's...etc like your screenshot shows. I kept my version mainly so I know what comic is in which box and so the report page fits it all. But yea take replace the Publisher column with Era or something, that'd be sweet.

 

Just be sure you catch all the changes in the report page (so it shows the right stuff), query and the SQL statement of the form (go into the properties of the OK button and hit Event Procedure). But if you need help, just shoot me a PM

 

I do like your count total. That is one thing I would like to add to this. I'll have to look into that.

 

I haven't tried it yet, but I think you can get Open Office to run it. I'll check on that for ya.

 

Jerome

[Mac Man]

I miss MS Access. I made some absolutely kickin' info database programs from scratch when I was in the Army, and while they weren't the most beautiful, they ended up in front of the Secretary of the Army as a means of stream lining info management.

 

MS Access, thank you. Too bad it didn't come with my Mac Office

[gpanalysis]

I miss MS Access. I made some absolutely kickin' info database programs from scratch when I was in the Army, and while they weren't the most beautiful, they ended up in front of the Secretary of the Army as a means of stream lining info management.

 

MS Access, thank you. Too bad it didn't come with my Mac Office

 

Just get yourself the developer/free version of MS SQL Server - I think they've upped the maximum size to like 5GB (which should be enough for 99% of projects) and it utilises all the features of its big brother version. A little transitioning required from Access, but well worth it.

[Lethal_Collector]

Alright so I took your advice and added a count query in the footer of the report so now it will display "X Comics". Try downloading the zip file again and it will have the record count. Don't know why I didn't think of that before, but o well.

 

Jerome

[the1stfo]

I miss MS Access. I made some absolutely kickin' info database programs from scratch when I was in the Army, and while they weren't the most beautiful, they ended up in front of the Secretary of the Army as a means of stream lining info management.

 

MS Access, thank you. Too bad it didn't come with my Mac Office

 

Just get yourself the developer/free version of MS SQL Server - I think they've upped the maximum size to like 5GB (which should be enough for 99% of projects) and it utilises all the features of its big brother version. A little transitioning required from Access, but well worth it.

 

 

+1

 

It's actually called "SQLServer Express". Get that plus Visual Studio Express (also free) and you can code a sweet looking interface to interact with the database. Actually, the way Visual Studio is setup you can probably make the interface and all database access without writing a single line of code.

[Thomas Nielsen]

Thank you jump_ace for providing this.

Is there any way to incorporate covers

[Lethal_Collector]

Hmmm, I haven't thought of that. I'm not sure if Access will pull info from pictures in a database, or even allow pictures to be referenced in a table, i.e. make a column with a reference to a .jpg in your my documents folder. I'll look into it mate.

 

Jerome

[jerome34]

One thing to consider f you have a big bunch of data in an old database and

want to use a newer one is how to preserve the data from the old database.

It should be possible to write a program that will access the old database

record by record and write a file that has the data reorganized for the new database.

Then you just have the new database read the file as if it was input from the keyboard

and apply the records to the new database.

 

No, I have not done much database work so I cannot write such a program myself.

 

However, knowing that it can be done is a good start.

 

[My own computer program is so old, it pre-dates any PC database program. I

should get ComicBase and put in my data which would have to be done by hand.

Manual data input for some (40,000 DC) + (5,500+ Marvel )+ (2,500+ GA) +

(2,000 modern) keeps me from doing anything.]

 

Best of luck, folks.

[ThreeSeas]

Hmmm, I haven't thought of that. I'm not sure if Access will pull info from pictures in a database, or even allow pictures to be referenced in a table, i.e. make a column with a reference to a .jpg in your my documents folder. I'll look into it mate.

 

Jerome

 

I believe that there is a way to do it but it has been a while since I had read about it. I will have to dig back through my Access manuals and see if I can find where it speaks of inserting photos. That is one of the reasons I wanted to switch from Dataperfect to MS Access - to be able to see a cover scan of the issue that is being viewed. I also intend on scanning and including the yearly Statement of Ownership (I think it is called) that shows the circulation figures.

 

Tonight I shall see if I can find time to do some reading and I'll post any information I find about it.

[Ringfinger]

Nice job!!

[Lethal_Collector]

I got pictures embedded or linkable in the report and have created a second database zip file and updated the first post. Let me know if you guys think of anything else or see something I missed Putting images in the table is kind of tricky, but as soon as you do it once you can do it many thousand times, hehe.

 

Jerome

[ThreeSeas]

Ok, I found the chapter on adding pictures. Bear in mind that this is for Access 2000 but I believe it will work the same way with newer versions. I am typing this as it appears in my book:

 

In addition to text and numerical values, you can store pictures in your Access database. Access uses the Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) protocol to make that possible.

 

Pictures are useful items to store in a database. Sales representatives can call up photos or illustrations of products as well as price and availability information to better inform customers about products.

 

You can also allow users to include video, sound, and other file types in your database through the Object Linking and Embedding protocol.

 

How do I include other types of files, in an OLE object field? Simply set the field’s data type to OLE object. You can enter any file’s name in the field when you are entering data.

 

What graphic file formats can be put in an OLE Object field? Access supports most of the popular graphics, including JPEG (.jpg), GIF (.gif) and Windows Bitmaps (.bmp)

 

Hopefully this makes sense. I have not experimented yet to see if I can put individual pictures in for each record but I will do that shortly.

 

Edit: I must have been typing the same time you were as I now see you post right above mine. cool.

 

[Lethal_Collector]

Gotta go to dinner, I'll shoot ya a reply later. Or PM if you are stuck on somethin'.

 

Jerome

[Count]

Any suggestion of storing images in MS Access (such as jpeg photos & other graphics/pictures) usually meets with a response such as:

"Don't ! Access is terribly inefficient at storing images".

 

This is not the case. The Access 'OLE Object' field can store any binary data, including images, with negligible overhead compared to the file-system.

 

This perceived inefficiency relates to the specific cases of OLE-Embedding and OLE-Linking. These techniques can cause a significant storage overhead when used for images, particularly with photos or scanned pictures in jpeg format. It is not uncommon for an Access database to hit the size-limit for the mdb file (1 or 2 GB, depending on the version) after as few as 100 jpg images, when in fact the database could store many thousands of pictures.

[Count]

I use the below code to display the image on a form without actually embeding the file into the Db.

 

Private Sub Form_Current()

Dim Name, loc As String

Dim fs

Call DBPath

 

Name = Me!txtname & Me!Issue

loc = "images\Stock_images\"

Set fs = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

 

If fs.FileExists(DBPath & loc & Name & ".jpg") Then

Me!Image01.Picture = DBPath & loc & Name & ".jpg"

Else

Me!Image01.Picture = DBPath & loc & "untitled.jpg"

End If

 

End Sub

 

Also since I tend to throw the db onto flash drives I made the DB location dynamic by using the call command in the private sub to the below module

 

Public Function DBPath() As String

DBPath = CurrentProject.Path & "\"

End Function

 

Seems to work great with Access but I definitely recommend going with SQL

[everlongcomics]

love the Counts zombie cartoon

[Lethal_Collector]

Well I can't edit my original post for some reason anymore, but I've made a couple small tweaks; I added a Value column to the Comics Table, Form Sheet, Query and Report Printout.

 

I've also recently ditched my webserver and have uploaded the files as shown below.

 

Update II: I've finally gotten around to creating a form where you can add comics to the table (could it be because the PSN is down? ). If a field doesn't apply, just type a '-' and click Add when you are ready to save that record and create another.

 

Update III: I've added the option to show a report with pictures or without, just check the appropriate checkbox. I also loaded each item in the table with a default bitmap image. It's just a small white square (something has to be in each cell under the Image category for the search to find it).

 

Comics DB

 

Please let me know if the links stop working.

 

All the steps listed in the OP are still current

 

Jerome

[Muttley-migration]

Hello All,

Just came across your database Jump_Ace and have tried the links to grab it, they are all down can you let me know where I can grab a copy of it as it sounds just what I am trying to achieve with access here.

Cheers