Welcome to another Fast Tips TechHelp video brought to you by AccessLearningZone.com. I'm your instructor, Richard Rost. Is your VBA editor loading slow? Well, in today's video, I'm going to tell you why, probably, and what to do about it.

If you're like me, you've got a pretty big database. My database is huge. I've been building it for 20-plus years, and it has lots of stuff, hundreds of forms, reports, modules, and more. When I go to open the VBA editor for the first time, it's super slow.

I'm also loading it across the network. I've got a properly split database, of course, and the "Access server" sits on a different machine than my normal workstation. So whenever I open the VBA editor (and I put a button up here on the Quick Launch Toolbar to open the VBA editor), it's the same as when you go to Design View and then to Form Design, hitting the little icon to open up the code.

Now, this one's going to load up quickly because it's on my desktop, on my local machine. It's my small TechHelp database. But this window, the VBA editor, can literally take 20 to 30 seconds to load up if I'm loading my main database.

So why is that? The reason why is because every time you work with one of these form modules, report modules, or actual modules, it opens up this window. If you're like me and you have them all maximized, you might not realize there's a ton of these open in the background. You can see that if you click this button to restore the window. Look, these are all open in the background.

As you work on these and don't explicitly close them, each time the VBA editor opens, it has to load each of these form modules and report modules in the background, slowing down the VBA editor. If you've got a few hundred of these like I do and you don't close them over time, that's what happens.

How do you fix it? You'd think there'd be a command up here, like Window Close All or something, but there's not. You can tile them, cascade them, and do all kinds of stuff, but there's no close command. You've got to close them by hand. You can do it with the mouse, or Control+F4 will also close these little windows inside the big window. That's a throwback from when applications used to have that MDI, the multiple document interface. You can just hold Control+F4 down, and they'll go away.

Now, if you close Access and come back in, and you go back in here, they're all back again. What happened? If you don't compile, if you don't do a debug compile once in a while, the VBA editor keeps its state. I can close down all of these, and if you come back in without doing a debug compile, it's going to save the state of the editor.

So what you have to do is get it down to maybe one left, debug compile, and if you can't debug compile, you've got to make a change to one thing in your file somewhere, maybe just hit Enter. Then you can debug compile. If you don't like that, put it back the way it was.

Now, if I close down Access (see, this is open in the background because that was a form module), save that one, close it, and now open her back up, and go in here, you can see it saved the state because you have to do it after a debug compile. That will save you some time if you've got a giant database like I do, and it takes forever to load the VBA editor. It's annoying.

I'm like the auto mechanic who tinkles with his car constantly. I'm always going into the VBA editor, and it's super slow if I don't remember to do that close windows thing once in a while.

So that's it for today. Nice short fast tip. That's why they call them Fast Tips. I know some of the Fast Tips aren't fast tips. I make the intro, and it's 13 minutes long, but that's not fast. Today, it's fast.

This is released publicly on December 26, 2024. Hope everyone had a nice Christmas. Tomorrow we're going to do a nice long TechHelp with an extended cut. That's it. That's going to be your TechHelp Fast Tip for today. Hope you learned something. Live long and prosper, my friends. I'll see you next time.

TOPICS:
Reasons for slow VBA editor loading  
Managing open form and report modules  
Closing windows in VBA editor  
Using Control+F4 to close module windows  
Importance of debug compiling  
Steps to save VBA editor state

COMMERCIAL:
In today's video, we're discussing why your VBA editor might be loading slowly and what you can do about it. If you've got a big database with lots of forms, reports, and modules, it can take ages for the VBA editor to open. You'll learn how leaving form and report modules open can slow things down, and we'll show you how to close them efficiently using Control+F4. We'll also cover how to ensure the editor doesn't reload these modules by performing a debug compile. These quick tips could save you a lot of time if you work with a large database. You'll find the complete video on my YouTube channel and on my website at the link shown. Live long and prosper my friends.