This is a quick post that isn't on the overall list but that is provides some more details about new color tools in Access 12. This was written by Clint Covington on the Access PM team (thanks Clint,
Office Home And Student Product Key!). The post on the new forms design tools is still to come.Colors in Access 12Office 12 introduces a new theme model for the ribbon and shell chrome. The blue Luna and dark obsidian themes draw from different color palettes. Access 12 introduces a new set of form and report colors that make it possible to build applications that look great in both themes. Our goal is to allow users to build great looking apps that fit the current theme. We are still tweaking the colors but the following images should give you a good idea. These are the same forms just running in the different theme. (Click to enlarge) (Click to enlarge)Color PickersThe colors can be set by using the Access theme color picker that is available from the ribbon and builds on color properties in the property sheet. The first and second row include Access theme colors that change based on if the app is running in the blue or obsidian theme. These colors have been designed to theme appropriately in high contrast mode. The first row in the Standard Colors section includes a generic color palette used by the rest of Office. The bottom row of colors is the generic standard colors. These colors and system colors are available in the property sheet as named colors. You will also notice that the property sheet now displays the colors in the standard HEX format format. We also updated the datasheet to support more than 16 colors. This makes it possible to create much better looking dark backgrounds with light fonts. Backwards Compatibility with New ColorsIf we store a new negative number as a property value as a color value,
office Home and Business 2010 key, when the color is displayed in Access 2003 it will display as black. This effectively breaks cross version compatibility for any new form created in Access 2007. When the user is using an MDB the Access Theme Colors section in the color picker and Access theme colors in the property sheet dropdown will not be visible to the user. Any color sets will store the positive version of the number and not the mapping color number. This means that new controls,
Office 2010 Home And Student Key, property sheet changes,
Cheap Office Enterprise 2007, and autoformats will always persist colors that work in previous versions of Access. Users need to Save As ACCDB to take advantage of the new theme colors. If a user attempts to save an ACCDB as an MDB we will not attempt to fix-up the colors. <div