Developing Excel 2004 Addins

[Jason T. Roff]

Hello,

Can somebody point me to some documentation on developing addins for
Excel 2004?

I have an MS Excel addin developed with Excel97 SDK that needs to be ported.

Is VBA (2004 only) or AppleScript the solution?

Or is there a C++ option?

Thank you.

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Hi Jason,

We're at a crossroads. There is no clearcut answer.

For office 2004 you can use Visual Basic for Applications and AppleScript
for sure. Possibly RealBasic (I'm not sure).

For office 2008, which Microsoft anticipates will be released later this
year, Visual Basic support goes away. That leaves AppleScript. Possibly
RealBasic (completely unknown at this point).

That said, you might be able to build your applications in Cocoa. Or maybe
even Silverlight.

What kind of things would you like to try to do (without spilling any beans
that need to be kept in their place)?

-Jim Gordon
Mac MVP

Hello,

Can somebody point me to some documentation on developing addins for
Excel 2004?

I have an MS Excel addin developed with Excel97 SDK that needs to be ported.

Is VBA (2004 only) or AppleScript the solution?

Or is there a C++ option?

Thank you.

--
Jim Gordon
Mac MVP

MVPs are not Microsoft Employees
MVP info

 

[Jason T. Roff]

We're at a crossroads. There is no clearcut answer.

Thanks for the response Jim.

For office 2004 you can use Visual Basic for Applications and AppleScript
for sure. Possibly RealBasic (I'm not sure).

For office 2008, which Microsoft anticipates will be released later this
year, Visual Basic support goes away. That leaves AppleScript. Possibly
RealBasic (completely unknown at this point).

Are VBA and PowerScript the only two options? Do these create macros or
addins?

What kind of things would you like to try to do (without spilling any beans
that need to be kept in their place)?

I need to:
1. read and write to and from cells
2. set and clear named ranges
3. create native looking interfaces (toolbars, buttons, menus, etc...)
4. less important - paste images

The rest, can be external to the addin (as long as the addin can
communicate with a C++ library)
1. HTTP communication with my server
2. Read and write to local files

What do you think?

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

VBA, AppleScript, and RealBasic (if it works) each have strong and weak
points for the features you are seeking.

I'm most familiar with VBA, and it can accomplish everything you asked
about, except, perhaps, for the C++ library communication. I never tried
using VBA with C++. In theory it works, but I don't know if anyone has
actually had success with it. But VBA goes away in Office 2008.

I'm not making any decisions for myself until I see what 2008 has, and how
much it has in common with 2004.

-Jim

Thanks for the response Jim.


Are VBA and PowerScript the only two options? Do these create macros or
addins?


I need to:
1. read and write to and from cells
2. set and clear named ranges
3. create native looking interfaces (toolbars, buttons, menus, etc...)
4. less important - paste images

The rest, can be external to the addin (as long as the addin can
communicate with a C++ library)
1. HTTP communication with my server
2. Read and write to local files

What do you think?

--
Jim Gordon
Mac MVP

MVPs are not Microsoft Employees
MVP info

 

[Jason T. Roff]

VBA, AppleScript, and RealBasic (if it works) each have strong and weak
points for the features you are seeking.

I'm most familiar with VBA, and it can accomplish everything you asked
about, except, perhaps, for the C++ library communication. I never tried
using VBA with C++. In theory it works, but I don't know if anyone has
actually had success with it. But VBA goes away in Office 2008.

I'm not making any decisions for myself until I see what 2008 has, and how
much it has in common with 2004.

-Jim

Thanks Jim.

Do we have a date for 2008 yet?

Can we do Internet access with VBA in 2004 besides with Query Tables?

I need to communicate with a server (HTTPS) and parse and paste the
results (based upon commands in the results).

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Quoting from "Jason T. Roff" <[email protected]>, in article
(e-mail address removed), on [DATE:

Do we have a date for 2008 yet?

Microsoft has said they hope to have it on the market by the end of this
year.

Can we do Internet access with VBA in 2004 besides with Query Tables?

You can use GET and POST in web queries.

I need to communicate with a server (HTTPS) and parse and paste the
results (based upon commands in the results).

I don't know whether or not secure HTTP is supported. Try it!

-Jim

--
Jim Gordon
Mac MVP

MVPs are not Microsoft Employees
MVP info