How to find Watch window in Office X VB Editor

[N Sanders]

Greetings all,

Apologies if this is a FAQ here but I've searched google for over an
hour with no result. I've just updated to a new machine, running Tiger
and installed Office X (after updates, 10.1.6). I have dozens of legacy
Excel files with all manner of VB code in them from my Excel 5 under OS
8.6 and I'm trying to make them work under this new system environment.

One major problem is that I can't figure out how to get out a Watch
window!!! I've looked until I'm blue in the face and there is nothing
in any menu which will bring out a window where I can see variable
values at runtime. I can get out the Immediate window, but that doesn't
help and in any case I'm not interested in typing in the same variable
multiple times!

The help system is useless (not that I'm surprised). My web searches
turn up documents which tell me to click Add Watch from the View menu,
which doesn't exist.

Please, is there someone out there who's solved this problem on Office X?

 

[Bob Greenblatt]

Greetings all,

Apologies if this is a FAQ here but I've searched google for over an
hour with no result. I've just updated to a new machine, running Tiger
and installed Office X (after updates, 10.1.6). I have dozens of legacy
Excel files with all manner of VB code in them from my Excel 5 under OS
8.6 and I'm trying to make them work under this new system environment.

One major problem is that I can't figure out how to get out a Watch
window!!! I've looked until I'm blue in the face and there is nothing
in any menu which will bring out a window where I can see variable
values at runtime. I can get out the Immediate window, but that doesn't
help and in any case I'm not interested in typing in the same variable
multiple times!

The help system is useless (not that I'm surprised). My web searches
turn up documents which tell me to click Add Watch from the View menu,
which doesn't exist.

Please, is there someone out there who's solved this problem on Office X?

Nope, there's no one who has solved this problem in OSX, because the feature
is simply not there. The Macintosh uses VB5 vs. Windows implementation of
VB6. You'll just have to find another way to debug the code. Stepping
through the code, using the immediate window and/or interspersing msgbox
commands to display the variable is about the only way,.

 

[N Sanders]

Nope, there's no one who has solved this problem in OSX, because the feature
is simply not there. The Macintosh uses VB5 vs. Windows implementation of
VB6. You'll just have to find another way to debug the code. Stepping
through the code, using the immediate window and/or interspersing msgbox
commands to display the variable is about the only way,.

<look of complete astonishment>
Thank you so much for confirming that I'm not going nuts! I can't
believe how essential features can disappear from versions during
"upgrades". I figured there had to have been something I was missing.

You're right, there is always the "output" statement in any language as
a last-resort debugging tool. However, I reckon my reliance on VB is
about to get a whole lot less...

Just for my curiosity, is this situation the same under Office 2004? I
was about to buy it when I noticed a package of Office X in the shop's
bargains bin.

 

[JE McGimpsey]

Thank you so much for confirming that I'm not going nuts! I can't
believe how essential features can disappear from versions during
"upgrades". I figured there had to have been something I was missing.

You're right, there is always the "output" statement in any language as
a last-resort debugging tool. However, I reckon my reliance on VB is
about to get a whole lot less...

Just for my curiosity, is this situation the same under Office 2004? I
was about to buy it when I noticed a package of Office X in the shop's
bargains bin.

Yes - MacOffice has never had a watch window. There's never been enough
market pressure to update the VBE or move to VBA6.

 

[N Sanders]

Yes - MacOffice has never had a watch window. There's never been enough
market pressure to update the VBE or move to VBA6.

Wow. Well, at least I only paid $100 instead of over $700! Thanks guys