From: "Earl F. Glynn"
Subject: ADOExpress with Access:  Not Ready for Prime Time?
Date: 21 Jan 2000 00:00:00 GMT
Message-ID: <86a85q$iqt19@bornews.borland.com>
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Reply-To: "Earl F. Glynn"
Newsgroups: borland.public.delphi.database.ado

I bought ADOExpress to work with Access databases using an ADO connection.
I planned to work with databases that contain images.

I was very disappointed that ADOExpress was just a CD -- it came with no
documentation and with only a few (somewhat cryptic) examples.  Chapter 23,
"Working with ADO Components," in the Borland Delphi 5 Developer's Guide is
only 28 pages long.  This is hardly adequate documentation.

I was able to connect with the Northwind.MDB sample Access database that
comes with MS Office fairly easily and quickly using the Microsoft Jet 4.0
OLE DB provider.  I can see and manipulate "normal" data in this Access
database.

BUT, why is there no native way to display the "Photo" BLOB field from the
Northwind database that is an OLE Object?  The TDBImage component isn't
smart enough to display this BLOB?   Am I missing something here?

DBOLE from http://www.opus.ch/Products/DBOLE seems to be a possible
solution, but I can't get it to work with Delphi 5 and ADOExpress.  Why
should I have to buy yet-another-add-on product for Delphi (perhaps Diamond
ADO, http://www.islamov.com/diamondado)  just so I can manipulate images as
OLE Objects in an Access database?

Can I save/restore bitmaps in a TBlobField in an Access database somehow
using a TADOBlobStream?  But then, these bitmaps couldn't be manipulated in
regular Access since they wouldn't be following "MS Rules"?

When I connect to the Borland-provided animals.DBF dBASE file without
ADOExpress, I can view the BMP field in a TDBImage component.  BUT, when I
use ADOExpress to connect to this same database, the BMP field is missing.
Why doesn't ADO like these images?

Why is there no disclaimer in the rdmeado.txt file that comes with
ADOExpress that OLE Objects in Access databases are not supported?  Where is
this disclaimer in the marketing information, such as that provided at:
http://shop.borland.com/shop/proddtl/0,1070,1-251,00.html

Is it too much to ask for a complete solution?  Why doesn't ADOExpress
provide a direct way to work with OLE Objects, especially bitmap images?
--
efg

Earl F. Glynn
Overland Park, KS  USA

efg's Computer Lab:  http://www.efg2.com/Lab