Edge Browser
By Richard Rost
3 years ago
Using the New Edge Browser Control in Microsoft Access In this Microsoft Access tutorial, I'm going to show you how to use the new Edge Browser Control. We will use it to display a picture from a website for each customer. We'll see how it works in continuous forms as well as reports, unlike the old browser control. MembersThere is no extended cut, but here is the database download: Silver Members and up get access to view Extended Cut videos, when available. Gold Members can download the files from class plus get access to the Code Vault. If you're not a member, Join Today!
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Keywords TechHelp Access 2016, Access 2019, Access 2021, Access 365, Microsoft Access, MS Access, MS Access Tutorial, #msaccess, #microsoftaccess, #help, #howto, #tutorial, #learn, #lesson, #training, #database, Edge Browser Control in Access, Access continuous forms Edge control, Access reports web integration, Access customer picture display, Microsoft Access Edge integration, continuous form browser compatibility, embed Edge in Access forms, Access form web display techniques, Access Edge Browser practical example, Access Edge Browser customization.
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Intro In this video, we will talk about the new Edge browser control in Microsoft Access, which replaces the old Internet Explorer-based control. I will show you how to use the Edge browser control to display online images in your Access forms, continuous forms, and reports by linking to pictures stored on your website. We will walk through the process of adding a URL field in your table, setting up the browser control, and handling common issues that may come up, such as refreshing images and blank fields.Transcript Welcome to another TechHelp video brought to you by AccessLearningZone.com. I'm your instructor Richard Rost.
Today we are going to talk about the new Edge browser control in Microsoft Access.
So what is the Edge browser control? Well, Access has had the old browser control in it for decades, going back as far as I can remember, and it was based on Internet Explorer. So, a lot of new modern web pages would not display in it. You would get JavaScript errors and all kinds of problems.
They have finally updated it using the new Edge browser. In case you are not familiar with it, Microsoft Edge is a new browser. It is based on Chrome and works really well. Now it is inside Access. There it is - there is a browser inside an Access form.
It has been available since May of 2023 and it is currently December of 2023. It has been really buggy. I intentionally avoided doing any videos on it because I have been watching a lot of other Access experts and MVPs post videos and articles and have run into problem after problem. But that is how it is with any new software. You have to give it some room to grow. I like to let everybody else find the bugs first, and then, once it is kind of stable, I will start teaching on it.
As of right now, it is only available if you have an Access 365 subscription, not one of the perpetual license versions like Access 2016, 2019, or 2021. You have to have the subscription.
If you have any databases with the old browser control, do not panic, it still exists for now. No idea when Microsoft will pull the plug on it, but it will probably be around for a while still. So do not panic if you have an old web solution. I still have a database that I use on a regular basis that still has the old browser control, and I have no desire to rewrite that thing. It is a monster. So just keep that in mind for the future.
In today's video, I am going to show you how to display images from websites. For example, you have your customer database or your employee database and everyone has a picture, and it is already up on your website. Or a product database, for example, and all your product pictures are already up on your website. You can display them very easily using the web browser control.
It does not have to be an image. You can just take people right to a website if you want to, that is fine. But for today, just starting basic, I am going to show you how to display images.
I did do a video about a year or two ago about displaying online images with the old browser, but you are going to find that it is actually easier now with the new browser control. The new Edge browser control works with continuous forms and reports, which the old browser control did not do. We had to do all kinds of fancy tricks, downloading the image and saving it locally and so on. We do not have to do that anymore.
It is nice and simple now to display multiple images in a report or using a continuous form. This is a beginner-level video. We do not need any VBA or anything fancy to display these images, but you should at least know the basics of Access, building forms and reports and queries and all that stuff. If not, go watch my Access Beginner 1 class. It is absolutely free, it is on my website and my YouTube channel, it is about four hours long and it teaches you everything you need to know to get started.
Here I am in my TechHelp free template. This is a free database. You can grab a copy from my website if you want to. It has a real simple customer table and a customer form in it. Let's say we want to display a picture for each of these customers and it is already up on our website. It could be products, it could be whatever.
The first thing we have to do is put a field in the table to save this information. Let's go to our customer table in design view. I will come down to the bottom here and I will put in "Online Picture" and that will be a short text field.
Let's close it.
And let's go to the form now and let's add that field here. Just for the purposes of class, I am going to delete all of this stuff. We do not need it for now. Just get rid of that and let's add that "Online Picture." I am just going to copy "Country" and paste it, Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V, put it down here. We will put down here "Picture." In here, we will change the control source to "Online Picture" and we will also copy that and paste it up here, so the name of the box is also "Online Picture."
Let's close this and reopen it to see what we have.
There we go. Now in this "Picture" we are going to put the URL to the person's picture.
Where do we find that? On the web.
Open up my browser, go to my website, and I know I have my picture sitting right there, so I am going to right-click on it and select "Open image in new tab." This will give you the complete URL to that picture. It is a JPEG file. That is what I am going to copy.
I am back over here and will paste that into my "Picture" field. Maybe make that a little bit bigger so you can see the whole thing, like so. Those can get pretty long.
There it is. Now we are going to put a browser control here that is bound to that field, so that when the record loads it displays whatever is in that "Picture" field. Design view, make it a little bit bigger, let's go to form design, and there it is right there - there is the Edge browser control, not the old one. Where is the old one? The old one is right there. Don't use that one -- use this guy. The fancy little yellow lightning bolt. Draw a box, like so.
Now this thing is going to pop up. You can hard-code an address in here. If you always want this to go to a specific site, you can put that in here, but I do not. I want this to be based on the current customer's picture, so we are going to cancel it.
Now open up the properties for it. It is called EdgeBrowser32. I am going to rename that to just "wb" like web browser, something like that. I usually go "wb." I have been doing it forever. I am going to stick with "wb." You can call it "browser," you can call it "edge," you can call it whatever you want. The important thing is the control source right here. You are going to drop this down and pick "Online Picture."
Don't use "Picture," by the way. "Picture" is a reserved word. I think in one of my older videos, I used to use "Picture" and it has caused some problems in the past. So just like you, I learn new stuff all the time too.
Save that. We are going to close it, close it, reopen it, and oh, look at that. There's me. Whatever is in this field is going to pop up there.
I'll do another one. Let's go here. All right. Let's go James Kirk. Let's go back to our browser. I am going to search for picture of Captain Kirk. We will just find a picture. There's a good one. Let's go with this one. That looks good. Right-click and select "Open image in new tab." You want to link to just that JPEG.
Copy it. Come over here. Paste it.
Now, here's the thing, this picture is not going to update until you leave the record and come back to it. I am going to show you developers at the end of the video how you can make that update automatically. That unfortunately does require one little line of code.
Let's do one more. Who's next? Diana. Go over to Bing, again, find a picture, already found one, copy the URL, come back over here, paste it, leave the record, come back to it, and there is your picture.
Now, here is the beautiful thing. If you want to put these in a continuous form, it is very easy to do. Design view. Again, I am going to just delete this stuff here. We are going to drop the control in here like so. Cancel that guy, open up the properties, set the name to "wb," set this to "Online Picture," and slide it up a little bit, get rid of that gap, save it, close it, open it, and there it is. It takes a little second to load. It has to load each of these, but there you go. The old browser did not work in continuous forms.
Same thing if you want to make a report. Come down here, I've got a blank report. I will copy and paste that, copy, paste. Let's call this "CustomerR." Right-click design view. It is just an empty shell of a report, right? So again, let me delete this, get rid of this empty space, like so. We will bring this over.
We will set the record source equal to my customer table. We will add existing fields. We will bring in a couple of fields here, bring in that "Online Picture" if you want to see it, you do not have to.
Over here, we will put the control again. Cancel, open it up, "wb," "Online Picture," save it, close it, close it, and we are going to right-click and go into Print Preview. Again, it takes a second to load up there, and there you go. Isn't that cute?
This is good for customers, for products, for employees, whatever. Now you can take images that are online and put them right in your forms and reports. This method is so much easier than the method that I had to show you in the old browser. In the old browser you could not display it in a report like that. You would have to download the image locally and then display it using a picture control. I prefer this, because if you are going to have a central repository of images, best to put them on your website.
Developers, I am going to sneak that in here. If you are a developer and want to learn a couple of extra tricks, let me show you something new.
As I mentioned, this does not update until you leave the record and come back. For example, let me just take my picture again, let me copy this. If I go to a blank record, let's say out here and let's say "Jean-Luc Picard," paste that in, nothing happens. At this point, in the After Update event for this field, we can force this thing to navigate to this URL.
How do we do that? Right-click, design view, find this box's properties, go to Events, find the After Update event. If you do not know how to use this, I have a whole video on the After Update event. I will put a link to it down below. But right here in the "Online Picture" After Update, right here, we are going to say "wb" (that is the name of my control) dot Navigate, and this is where you can tell it where to go. You can put any website you want in here - your homepage, Google, whatever. But we already have a URL we want to navigate to, that is the online picture.
It is that simple; you just have to say, when the user updates this, navigate to the online picture. If I come in here again, let's copy James Kirk, go somewhere else, go over here, "William Riker," paste, then as soon as I hit Tab, the After Update event fires and loads that picture for you.
Now, you also have to take into consideration what happens if they delete this. If they delete that, you get "Invalid use of Null." You have to check for that here.
There are a couple ways you can do it. You can do:
If IsNull(OnlinePicture) Then Exit Sub
That is one way to do it. Or you could tell the browser control not to go anywhere. Watch this:
Nz(OnlinePicture, "about:blank")
What that does is, it uses the Nz function (again, if you are not familiar with that) to take a Null value and convert it to a zero or whatever else you want it to be. For numbers, it could be a zero, for text, it could be an empty string. In this case, we are going to go to "about:blank." "about:blank" is what you type into pretty much any browser to just get it to load a blank page.
So now, if the user blanks that field, it is just going to go to a blank page. Watch this. Let's do that again, come back to here and copy me, and we will go here and paste it in. Now if I come in here and delete it, blank page.
Isn't that cute?
Oh, and I have not figured out a way to change the background property of this. It is transparent, and if you open up the properties, there is no way to change the format of the back color in here. You can change borders, but you cannot change back color, which is kind of annoying. If the page that you want to go to is something like, let me show you - if you want to go to just "5ninanc.com" and it will load.
There it is loaded, but now notice the background of the page. I know it is really small, the background of the page is that blue, which I think is odd.
If you want to get around that, what you can do is put a white rectangle behind this thing. So go to form design, find a rectangle, draw a box. I like to keep it around it, but like one grid stop above and below it, like this, so you will see a little tiny frame. Then, make the format of that rectangle white, so your web pages will show up white in the back behind them.
Right-click on the browser position, bring to front to make sure it stays in front. Maybe for this guy, give it an outline in black.
Save it, close it, open it. Now you can see you have a frame around it. When the page loads, it takes a second - there it goes. Now you can see it has a white background behind it. I just think that looks better. That is just me.
There is one more nasty bug I discovered that I was going to wait until the end of the video to show you developers. You notice how, in your VBA editor, if you are in the OnlinePicture field, these are the properties and the methods and events for this browser control. If you come in here and try to pick any of these for the browser control itself, like let's say you go in here and pick "wb," and - Access has stopped working.
Any time you try to pick the browser control itself in the VBA editor, Access crashes. Note to the Access team: take a look at that, because it is a big issue. I have tried this in several different databases, on two or three different machines, and it always crashes. If anybody knows any of the Access team, let them know.
Before I finish today's video, I just wanted to bring up a couple of different resources that are available.
First, Mike Wolf has been putting together a page called "Resources for the Modern Edge-Based Browser Control in Access." He has done a really good job of putting together tons of different resources from other people that have put videos together and articles and forum discussions about this control. It has been going through a lot of work and changes, and they are doing things with it. It is much better now than it was back in May when I first played with it. I had nothing but problems with it back then, but now it seems to be somewhat stable except for the thing I just showed you.
Check out Mike's page. I am going to be doing a lot more with this in upcoming videos, but if you want to get a jumpstart on it now and learn a lot about what this thing can do without waiting for me, then check this page out.
Daniel Pineault has put out a couple of videos and a couple of really good articles about some of the nerdier aspects of how to, for example, push values to a page, click buttons on a page, and return values from a page. I am going to be covering some of this stuff, but he goes into a lot of detail so check that out as well.
As far as Microsoft's actual official documentation goes, there is not a whole lot. There is not much here, so it has mostly been MVPs and other people writing articles for Access that have put a lot of good information online.
There you go. There is your very brief intro to the Edge browser control - more to come.
I hope you learned something today. Live long and prosper, my friends. I will see you next time.Quiz Q1. What is the main improvement of the new Edge browser control in Microsoft Access over the old browser control?
A. It is based on the Microsoft Edge browser, allowing modern web pages to display correctly
B. It allows users to access the SQL server directly
C. It can only display PDF files
D. It automatically upgrades forms to the latest Access version
Q2. What was a major limitation of the old Internet Explorer-based browser control in Access?
A. It did not support online video playback
B. It caused JavaScript errors and had issues displaying modern web pages
C. It could not display any images
D. It was not available for Access 365
Q3. Which version of Microsoft Access currently supports the new Edge browser control?
A. Access 2016 with a perpetual license
B. Access 2019 standalone
C. Access 365 subscription
D. All versions of Access after 2013
Q4. What should you do if you still have databases that use the old browser control?
A. Immediately update them to use the Edge browser control
B. Do nothing right now, since the old control still works
C. Use VBA to convert the controls
D. Uninstall and reinstall Access
Q5. Why is it easier now to display multiple images on a continuous form or report using the Edge browser control?
A. The new control supports continuous forms and reports directly without workarounds
B. Image sizes are now automatically adjusted
C. All images are cached locally
D. There is a new image downloader built in
Q6. When storing the URL for an online picture in a customer table, what type of field should you add?
A. A number field
B. An attachment field
C. A short text field
D. A date/time field
Q7. When binding the Edge browser control to display an image for each record, what should the control source be set to?
A. The website home page URL
B. The "Online Picture" field containing the image URL
C. The customer ID field
D. A static image file on disk
Q8. Why should you avoid using "Picture" as the name of the field for image URLs in Access?
A. It is not descriptive enough
B. "Picture" is a reserved word in Access and could cause issues
C. It automatically formats images
D. It is required for VBA code to work
Q9. How can you make the Edge browser control refresh its displayed image as soon as the URL is updated in a form?
A. By closing and reopening the form each time
B. By adding a macro to reload all records
C. By using VBA in the After Update event to navigate to the new URL
D. By changing the form's record source
Q10. What problem occurs if the image URL field is set to Null and you try to navigate the browser control to it?
A. The image defaults to the Access logo
B. You get an "Invalid use of Null" error
C. Access automatically deletes the record
D. The form will close unexpectedly
Q11. How can you avoid errors when the image URL field is empty or Null?
A. Set the field's default value to the company logo
B. Use the Nz function to supply "about:blank" when the field is Null
C. Add a validation rule to prevent empty values
D. Remove the browser control from the form
Q12. What is a recommended way to give the browser control a consistent white background if its page has a non-white background?
A. Change the background color property in the control's format settings
B. Place a white rectangle shape behind the browser control in design view
C. Change the database theme to white
D. Set the form's background color to white
Q13. What happens if you try to access the browser control object directly in the VBA editor's IntelliSense or object list?
A. The browser control properties are listed normally
B. Access sometimes closes unexpectedly
C. The control is not selectable, but nothing else happens
D. Access crashes consistently
Q14. What is a current limitation regarding the formatting options for the Edge browser control in Access?
A. It cannot be resized in forms or reports
B. Its back color cannot be changed directly via properties
C. It is limited to one use per database
D. It only works with PNG images
Q15. Where can you find the most comprehensive and up-to-date resources about the Access Edge browser control, according to the video?
A. The official Microsoft documentation pages
B. Mike Wolf's resource page and articles by community MVPs like Daniel Pineault
C. The Access 2013 user manual
D. Hit F1 in Access for Help
Answers: 1-A; 2-B; 3-C; 4-B; 5-A; 6-C; 7-B; 8-B; 9-C; 10-B; 11-B; 12-B; 13-D; 14-B; 15-B
DISCLAIMER: Quiz questions are AI generated. If you find any that are wrong, don't make sense, or aren't related to the video topic at hand, then please post a comment and let me know. Thanks.Summary Today's TechHelp tutorial from Access Learning Zone focuses on the new Edge browser control in Microsoft Access. My name is Richard Rost and today I want to introduce you to this significant improvement for integrating web-based content inside your Access databases.
For many years, Access included a browser control that was essentially Internet Explorer built into your forms. As web technologies advanced, this older control struggled with modern sites, failing to display pages correctly and often throwing JavaScript errors. Thankfully, Microsoft has replaced it with an updated browser control based on Microsoft Edge. For those unfamiliar, Edge is Microsoft's modern browser, built on Chromium (the same base as Chrome), and it offers significantly better compatibility and performance. This Edge browser control is now available inside Access and allows you to embed a fully functioning web browser right on your forms.
Since its introduction in May of 2023, the Edge browser control has had its share of bugs and growing pains. I've held off making a tutorial until it became more stable, closely watching experiences and issues shared by other Access experts and MVPs. With updates continuing to roll out and with a much more stable experience as of December 2023, I believe it's finally ready for mainstream use.
One important note: the Edge browser control is only included if you have an Access 365 subscription. If you are using a perpetual license version such as Access 2016, 2019, or 2021, you will not have this feature. The old browser control is still available for now, so if you rely on it in existing databases, you do not need to worry about migrating immediately. However, keep in mind that Microsoft may phase it out in the future.
For this lesson, I will show you how to use the Edge browser control to display images straight from websites, such as photos for customers, employees, or products, saved on your company website. With this new tool, it's easier than ever to show online images directly in your Access forms and reports. You can, of course, use the control to display any web page, but for now we'll focus on showing images, as it's a common use case.
In the past, displaying images from URLs using the old browser control was far more complicated. It didn't work with continuous forms or reports, and there were all kinds of workarounds like downloading images locally first. The new Edge browser control removes these hurdles. Now, you can show multiple online images in both continuous forms and reports. This tutorial does not use any VBA code or advanced programming techniques, so you only need a basic understanding of building tables, queries, forms, and reports in Access. If you need help with those, my Access Beginner 1 course is free on my website and YouTube channel and will cover all the fundamentals.
To demonstrate, I used the free TechHelp template available on my website. In this example, I have a simple customer table and form. Suppose I want to store an online photo for each customer (or this could be a product, employee, etc.) The first step is to add a field in the customer table to hold the image's URL. In design view, I added a new short text field named "Online Picture."
Next, I updated the customer form to include this new field. You can copy an existing text box and adjust its control source property to "Online Picture." Now, users can paste the full image URL for each customer directly into this field.
To find the URL for an image on a website, open the image in your web browser, right-click it, and choose to open it in a new tab. This provides the direct address to that image, usually ending in .jpg or .png. Copy that URL and paste it into the "Online Picture" field in your Access form.
The next step is to add the Edge browser control to the form. In design view, select the Edge browser control from the toolbox; make sure you use the new control, which is represented by a yellow lightning bolt icon, and not the legacy one. Draw the browser control onto your form. When prompted for a default web address, cancel out, because instead of a fixed address, you want the control to reference the current record's "Online Picture" field.
Rename the control to something meaningful, like "wb" (short for web browser). Then, set its control source property to "Online Picture." Take care not to use "Picture" as a field or control name, since it's a reserved word in Access and could cause conflicts.
Now, whenever you move to a record with a valid image URL in the "Online Picture" field, the browser control will automatically display the corresponding image. You can repeat this for several records, such as different employees or products, each with distinct photo URLs.
What's especially nice is how the Edge browser control also works in continuous forms. Just as with a single item form, you place the browser control in the detail section, set its control source to "Online Picture," and Access will render each image for the relevant record as you scroll through your list. The previous browser control did not support this functionality.
You can also use the same technique with reports. On a blank report tied to your customer table, add the Edge browser control, again tying it to the "Online Picture" field. When you run the report, you will see a list showing each customer's information alongside their picture, fetched live from the web. This approach saves the overhead of storing large numbers of image files inside your database and keeps everything up-to-date.
There is one minor limitation that developers should be aware of. When you enter or change an online picture URL in the field, the browser control doesn't refresh immediately. It only updates after you move to another record and then return. To make the image update instantly, you need to add a tiny bit of VBA code in the After Update event for the URL field. This code tells the browser control to navigate to the new address as soon as the field is edited.
It's also important to handle cases where the field is cleared or left blank. If you simply ask the browser to navigate to a blank or null URL, you'll get an error. To prevent this, use a technique where any empty or null value gets replaced with "about:blank," which is a special web page that simply displays nothing. This keeps the browser control from throwing errors if someone deletes an image URL.
Another tip: at present, you cannot set the background color of the Edge browser control; it is always transparent. If you prefer a specific background color like white, place a rectangle shape behind the browser control on your form or report, set its color as desired, and send it to the back. This provides a cleaner look, especially with images that do not have a standard background.
Developers should also be warned about a persistent bug: if you try to select the browser control directly in the VBA code editor (for example, if you type its name), Access may crash. This bug has been consistent across databases and different machines. Hopefully it will be fixed by the Access team soon.
For those who want to learn more about the Edge browser control, several great resources are available. Mike Wolf has compiled a comprehensive "Resources for the Modern Edge-Based Browser Control in Access" page, which links to articles, videos, and forums that explore the control in-depth. Daniel Pineault has also published thorough guides on advanced topics such as interacting with web pages through the control. Official Microsoft documentation is still sparse, so third-party resources are especially valuable for more complex uses.
This concludes our introduction to the Edge browser control in Access. I hope this overview has given you a clear understanding of how to display online images and web content directly in your forms and reports, and how this new control improves on the previous Internet Explorer-based version. There is plenty more to explore, and I'll be posting further videos as Microsoft continues to improve and expand this feature.
You can find a complete video tutorial with step-by-step instructions on everything discussed here on my website at the link below. Live long and prosper, my friends.Topic List Overview of the Edge browser control in Access
Differences between the old IE-based browser control and Edge control
Requirements to use the Edge browser control Access 365 only
Adding a field for image URLs to a table
Binding a field for image URLs to a form
Copying image URLs from web pages for use in Access
Placing and configuring the Edge browser control on a form
Binding the Edge browser control to a record field
Displaying online images for records in forms
Displaying online images for records in continuous forms
Displaying online images for records in reports
Edge browser control support for continuous forms
Edge browser control support for reports
Forcing the Edge browser control to update after a field changes
Using the After Update event to refresh the Edge browser control
Handling null or blank image URLs gracefully
Defaulting the browser control to about:blank for empty fields
Adding a background rectangle to improve control appearance
Limitations of the Edge browser control back color property
Edge browser control crash issue in VBA editor |
