Entourage / Office 2007 / VBA

[JPenSuisse]

Hello Early Adopters...

I was recently considering switching from Apple Mail to Entourage. The
reason was that with VBA every kind of thinkable customization is
possible. I use VBA in Excel extensively, and my goal was to automate
mailing procedures. Then I found out that Entourage is not a VBA
application.... (!)

Further, I read some where that Office 2007 for Mac will have less
support for VBA than Office 2004. Is there anything to this? What
have people heard on this? I mean, it seems to me that if MS Office
doesn't support VBA, we might as well just use Open Office. Better for
MS Office to drop Entourage and Messenger and at least give us complete
applications of Word, Excel and PowerPoint. What does the community
think about this?

And as for Apple Script, why would I try to automate Entourage with
Apple Script? That's a proprietary script that only runs on 1
platform. VBA up to now has supported Mac and Windows... I have no
intention of waisting my time with Apple Script.

Hmm. I'm waiting for some interesting commentary from my fellow users
on these points!

Cheers, John

 

[Barry Wainwright [MVP]]

Hello Early Adopters...

I was recently considering switching from Apple Mail to Entourage. The
reason was that with VBA every kind of thinkable customization is
possible. I use VBA in Excel extensively, and my goal was to automate
mailing procedures. Then I found out that Entourage is not a VBA
application.... (!)

Quite true, Entourage is not, and never has been a windows application. It
is a purely Macintosh only programme, so it has always supported (and
supported very well) the Macintosh inter-application programming language -
AppleScript.

Further, I read some where that Office 2007 for Mac will have less
support for VBA than Office 2004. Is there anything to this? What
have people heard on this? I mean, it seems to me that if MS Office
doesn't support VBA, we might as well just use Open Office. Better for
MS Office to drop Entourage and Messenger and at least give us complete
applications of Word, Excel and PowerPoint. What does the community
think about this?

It is worse than you suspect - in Office 2007 there will be NO support for
VBA. There has been a huge amount of comment on this in the various public
forums etc.

Here is an explanation of the rationale from an MBU employee:
<http://www.schwieb.com/blog/2006/08/08/saying-goodbye-to-visual-basic/>

If you read the comments to that blog post you will get some idea of the
general feeleing.

And as for Apple Script, why would I try to automate Entourage with
Apple Script? That's a proprietary script that only runs on 1
platform. VBA up to now has supported Mac and Windows... I have no
intention of waisting my time with Apple Script.

Why do you need a solution to support Entourage across platforms? Entourage
is Mac only, and has excellent script support.

There are literally hundreds of scripts already written for entourage
available at http://scriptbuilders.net/ - take a look at what's already
available.

 

[JPenSuisse]

Hi there,

let me clarify: it's not that I want to support Entourage across
platforms. I just don't want to learn every single programming
language.... I'm just trying to work efficently. I use Flash, HTML
and VBA. There are only so many languages that fit in my head!
Remember I use a computer as a tool. And really, the way I use Excel
requires VBA, so I have to learn it anyway.

I guess I need to start evaluating how I will be working in the years
to come. Really, Microsoft is just pushing us into the hand of Apple's
stupid iApps or Open Office. For me Open Office is the better choice.

Thanks for the info. I can start evaluating my options now.

Cheers, John

 

[Barry Wainwright [MVP]]

Hi there,

let me clarify: it's not that I want to support Entourage across
platforms. I just don't want to learn every single programming
language.... I'm just trying to work efficently. I use Flash, HTML
and VBA. There are only so many languages that fit in my head!
Remember I use a computer as a tool. And really, the way I use Excel
requires VBA, so I have to learn it anyway.

I guess I need to start evaluating how I will be working in the years
to come. Really, Microsoft is just pushing us into the hand of Apple's
stupid iApps or Open Office. For me Open Office is the better choice.

Thanks for the info. I can start evaluating my options now.

Cheers, John

Yes, it's a time of turmoil for many mac users of Office

I am convinced that removing VBA will only harm the installed base (in
business, at least - and do home users really need to use Office?).

However, looking at the issues raised, I can understand their rationale - I
just don't like it because it will probably force me to use windows at work

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Side note:

If we must give Office a year number, Office 2008 is much more likely, even
if it comes out in late 2007. I hope nobody at MS is silly enough to
release WinOffice 2007 and MacOffice 2007.

But, really MacOffice 12 works better, and will avoid all confusion in
searching the archives.

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Hi there,

let me clarify: it's not that I want to support Entourage across
platforms. I just don't want to learn every single programming
language....

Well, if you want to customize your email--your choices seem to be either
scripting Entourage or using Automator for Mail. You probably don't need to
actually *learn* either of these, since they both have a pretty big
community of people creating various solutions. Previously Paul Berkowitz
said that Entourage had a much bigger script community, but I think that was
long enough ago that Automator wasn't really off the ground yet. Also, Mail
gets all the third-party plug-ins.

There is also Mozilla's Thunderbird, customizable via CSS, also with a big
community that will provide solutions/extensions whatever. Not sure what
else is out there in common use.

Anyhow, I don't see that VBA is relevant at all to your email program
decision, regardless of future changes.

I'm just trying to work efficently. I use Flash, HTML
and VBA. There are only so many languages that fit in my head!
Remember I use a computer as a tool. And really, the way I use Excel
requires VBA, so I have to learn it anyway.

I guess I need to start evaluating how I will be working in the years
to come.

Indeed. Since I opened NeoOffice recently and recoiled in horror at the
ugly mess on my screen, *I've* decided to start learning AppleScript.

However, you should also realize that MS has killed VBA on Windows too, but
not removed it yet, for at least the next few versions. So your effort in
learning VBA is likely to go to waste at some point no matter what--which is
why there is a big groundswell of dismay about this.
http://classicvb.org/

 

[JPenSuisse]

Hi Daiya

Thanks for the input. I have to figure out how to carry on most
importantly with Excel and my data analysis. I use many VBA programs
that I improvise and write myself. I actually thought that the .net
development would be just the next generation of VBA and that we would
migrate to it as well.

My question: is it possible to use RealBasic in the same way that VBA
is used in Excel? That is as a plug-in and writing data directly into
cells? I don't know anything about it. But, if it will work as such,
it might save the value of office... Or would this solution work with
Open Office as well? (Another application I currently know nothing
about.) I have to start assesing what I will do.

But, it is clear that Office is becoming less useful, and I'm not so
keen on paying all the money for MS Office without Visual Basic. I
think the consequences of this will be very far reaching for the MAC BU
within the next 5 years.

Again though, thanks to you MVPs for so many important comments.

Regards to all, JP

 

[Barry Wainwright [MVP]]

But, it is clear that Office is becoming less useful, and I'm not so
keen on paying all the money for MS Office without Visual Basic. I
think the consequences of this will be very far reaching for the MAC BU
within the next 5 years.

While I agree the consequences are going to hit MS hard, it is also true
that Office 2004 (with VBA) will continue to work after office 2008 is
released. You don't _have_ to upgrade.

 

[David Glass]

My question: is it possible to use RealBasic in the same way that VBA
is used in Excel? That is as a plug-in and writing data directly into
cells? I don't know anything about it. But, if it will work as such,
it might save the value of office... Or would this solution work with
Open Office as well? (Another application I currently know nothing
about.) I have to start assesing what I will do.

The short answer to this question is: It depends.

You mention 'plug-in', and I wonder if you mean an Excel Add-In? If
so, I don't know if REALbasic can do that sort of thing. I would think
not because the Rb code doesn't live in the workbook like VBA does; at
least the automating I've done via Rb doesn't live in the workbook.

REALbasic automates Office by hooking into the VBA libraries already
present. The upside to this is that if you know VBA you can make the
jump to automating via Rb fairly easily. The downside to this is that
if MS removes the VBA libraries there is nothing for Rb to hook to.

My take on the blog from the MBU is that the VBA libraries will remain
in place (at least for a while; 2 or more versions?) but any access to
them via the macro creation/recording interface will be turned off, as
will the VBA editor in each of the Office applications. If this is the
case then Rb should be able to automate Office without issue.

If MS actually *removes* the libraries, well, then there's nothing to
do but learn AppleScript to automate Office on the Mac.

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Hi David:

Our information is that "no" RealBasic does not currently support the kind
of application automation that VBA did. In the next version of Office, at
least initially, there is unlikely to be any RealBasic functionality at all.

I think you may be mis-reading the Microsoft blog on the topic of VBA. This
is what Eric Schweib, the man in charge of coding the area says:

" I should clear up one misconception about how the VB removal affects
existing macros that has been making the blog and comment rounds. The
removal of VB means that existing macros in Office documents will be
round-tripped across file open and save, but you will not be able to edit
them and you will not be able to run them on the Mac. Even previously
compiled macros will not execute, because they have been compiled to PowerPC
code that conforms to an older binary interface."

http://www.schwieb.com/blog/2006/08/08/saying-goodbye-to-visual-basic/

So sorry: No VBA means it's gone. Nothing. Nadda. Not even an
error-message. VBA code contained within a Word file will remain there,
invisible except on the PC. There will be no easy way to edit it or even
remove it.

Cheers

The short answer to this question is: It depends.

You mention 'plug-in', and I wonder if you mean an Excel Add-In? If
so, I don't know if REALbasic can do that sort of thing. I would think
not because the Rb code doesn't live in the workbook like VBA does; at
least the automating I've done via Rb doesn't live in the workbook.

REALbasic automates Office by hooking into the VBA libraries already
present. The upside to this is that if you know VBA you can make the
jump to automating via Rb fairly easily. The downside to this is that
if MS removes the VBA libraries there is nothing for Rb to hook to.

My take on the blog from the MBU is that the VBA libraries will remain
in place (at least for a while; 2 or more versions?) but any access to
them via the macro creation/recording interface will be turned off, as
will the VBA editor in each of the Office applications. If this is the
case then Rb should be able to automate Office without issue.

If MS actually *removes* the libraries, well, then there's nothing to
do but learn AppleScript to automate Office on the Mac.

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Business Analyst, Consultant
Technical Writer.
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410

 

[David Glass]

Well, you probably have better information than I do.

However, Rb doesn't rely on existing macros to automate Office, so
there would be no need to have VBA code, or have access to that code,
in a document.

If the VBA libraries are removed then, yes, no more automating via Rb.
The subsequent entries in the blog would seem to indicate that's the
way it is going to go.

Perhaps my initial reading was with a bit too much hope.