ADO and the Visual Database Tools

Abstract

i’ve been writing and talking about the Visual Database Tools for several years now. Visual Basic version 5.0 really introduced the first of the tools—the User Connection Designer. The User Connection Designer was originally designed to make the process of creating an RDO application easier, and that it did. It reduced 40-some-odd lines of code to about 4. It had the capability to deal with most of the fundamental issues associated with executing SQL Server or Oracle stored procedures. However, the User Connection Designer stopped short of many of the features exposed in the Visual Basic 6.0 Data View window, Data Environment Designer, or the new data wizards. My Hitchhiker’s Guide to Visual Basic and SQL Server ¹ discusses these tools in the context of accessing SQL Server from Visual Basic in far more detail than does this chapter. The Visual Basic 6.0 Visual Database Tools are all capable of accessing more than just SQL Server. Because they leverage the latest providers exposed by OLE DB and ADO, they can be used to access Jet (3.5 and 4.0), Oracle, DB2, and many other data sources. While functionality varies dramatically from provider to provider, many support at least the basic functionality of the Visual Database Tools.