Visual Basic objects

[Sari]

Hi, Mac folks!

I usually work with PCs (my employer's choice-we have a
Mac at home!), but we have some customers who use Macs.
I have a question about Visual Basic objects.

First, I am not very familiar with VBA. I just know how
to create objects such as scrolling text boxes, check
boxes, and option buttons that can be used in PPT. I
should say, I know how to do it in Windows.

I have figured out that on the Mac it is under View:
Toolbars: Visual Basic. I can then insert a User Form
and create the objects that I want. I can even run the
form from this mode. But how do I get these objects onto
my regular PPT slide? In Windows, I can create these
objects right on the slide so that when the show is run,
the user can use the scroll bar, type in the text box (as
long as it's not locked), check the box, or make a
selection with option buttons. But I have not been able
to figure out how to put these objects directly onto the
slide on a Mac (I have used both 98 and X). Am I missing
a simple step? The Windows people kept telling me Mac
doesn't support Active X controls, but I can create the
objects. And Microsoft's own Help manual mentions using
these features with Macs. I just can't integrate the
objects into my original show.

Can anyone here help me? I (and our customers) would
really appreciate it.

Thank you.

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Hi Sari,

You can use Visual Basic for Applications commands that are VB 5, but not
anything that came after version 5 won't work.

Active X controls are open source, but so far no one has ported Active-X to
the Mac. So Active-X controls are not available to you on the Mac. You may
be able to create the controls in Windows, but they just won't work in Mac
PowerPoint.

Instead of using Active-X controls use the controls from the standard
toolbox. These work the same in both Mac and Windows. On both platforms you
can activate userforms with action settings (run macro). Buttons are
available from the drawing toolbar > Autoshapes > Action Buttons > Action
Button Custom.

The only caveat about userforms is don't put pictures onto userforms if you
want your presentation to work on both Mac and Windows. Windows does not
like pictures on userforms if the userforms were made on a Mac and
vice-versa.

-Jim Gordon
Mac MVP

All responses should be made to this newsgroup within the same thread.
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[Steve Rindsberg]

a simple step? The Windows people kept telling me Mac

doesn't support Active X controls,

Sari, I think most of the Windows responses have been careful to point out that
you can't add Active-X controls *to slides* on the Mac. Obviously, you can add
text boxes, check boxes and the like to user forms.

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Instead of using Active-X controls use the controls from the standard

toolbox. These work the same in both Mac and Windows.

Not exactly, and therein lies the confusion.

In Windows PPT, the VB toolbar has a Control Toolbox button (looks just like
the one in the VB IDE on both platforms). Using it, you can pop listboxes,
option buttons and such directly onto a slide ... pretty much the same controls
you can use on a user form, but you don't have to create a user form to use
them.

Of course, without a bit of extra VBA coding, the things aren't very useful.

And if you move the presentation to Mac PPT, they're even less valuable, as
they turn into empty holes in the slide, it seems. ;-)

 

[Sari]

Thank you for your replies. I don't really understand
the purpose of a User Form. I just want our customers to
be able to create text boxes that can be edited (i.e.
typed in) while a show is running. While trying to
figure out how to do this, I learned about the Control
Toolbox and realized they could also make scrolling text
boxes, etc. Even without any extra code, these features
are useful. Our customers are educators, and with theses
features they can make slide shows for their students
that are truly interactive, allowing for student
responses.

I'm disappointed to learn that this feature is not
available on the Mac. My husband is a die-hard Mac user,
and I always thought the Mac was more user-friendly. But
I guess they want people to use their own product
(Keynote) rather than Microsoft's.

Steve, I wasn't criticizing the Windows people. They
have been extremely helpful every time I have posted to
the site. But they also are pretty clear that they don't
work with Macs and usually don't know the answers to Mac
questions.

Incidentally, I don't need to transport files from one
platform to the other. We just have some classes that
will take place in a Mac lab. I guess we'll have to
change the curriculum for that class, since using the
Control Toolbox apparently is not an option. Any
suggestions as to special features on the Mac that would
fit well into a Super Super Advanced PowerPoint coure
(NOT my title, by the way!)? We don't want to get into
any coding or macros, just cool features of the software
that would not have been covered in the three previous
courses.

Thanks for your replies.

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

I'm disappointed to learn that this feature is not

available on the Mac. My husband is a die-hard Mac user,
and I always thought the Mac was more user-friendly. But
I guess they want people to use their own product
(Keynote) rather than Microsoft's.

They may that, but that doesn't really have much to do with this issue, I don't
think. Windows is built on a certain set of software technologies, Mac OS on
another. Rewriting core Windows technology for Macs is an expensive
proposition, so some of it's been done but not all. Active-X controls are one
of the bits that got left out, mostly because of demand. For the most part,
the PPT controls are not very user accessible, so they're not much used even in
Windows, so if MS had to leave something out of the Mac version, I think they
chose well.

It works both ways, by the way. Quicktime is a fundamental bit of Mac OS
techonology that PowerPoint Windows can't count on, so you can't do neat things
like save a PPT presentation to a QT movie on the PC. So it goes.

Steve, I wasn't criticizing the Windows people. They
have been extremely helpful every time I have posted to
the site. But they also are pretty clear that they don't
work with Macs and usually don't know the answers to Mac
questions.

That's what puzzled me. I mentioned in one of my replies in the Windows
section of the newsgroup that I'd checked this on the Mac here. I'm somewhat
bilingual, y'see. ;-)

Incidentally, I don't need to transport files from one
platform to the other. We just have some classes that
will take place in a Mac lab. I guess we'll have to
change the curriculum for that class, since using the
Control Toolbox apparently is not an option. Any
suggestions as to special features on the Mac that would
fit well into a Super Super Advanced PowerPoint coure
(NOT my title, by the way!)? We don't want to get into
any coding or macros, just cool features of the software
that would not have been covered in the three previous
courses.

As mentioned, check out making QT movies from your presentations. Give the Mac
folk something to gloat about. And you might ask them: Given a choice, which
would you rather have, movies or scrolling text boxes? ;-)

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Hi Sari,

The idea of being able to type over a slide during a show sounds
interesting. You can already write on a slide (control-click on a slide that
is playing) using the Pen feature. I wonder if that feature could be
expanded to include typing from the keyboard. You can send that suggestion
to Microsoft using the Feedback feature on PowerPoint's help menu.

Nothing from the Active-X control toolbox will work on a Mac. Even if Apple
or someone else were to bring Active-X to the Macintosh developers would
have to code for it in their applications. It wouldn't be something that
would "just work" by having it available in MacOS. You can suggest that
Apple bring Active-X at this URL:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/feedback/

Keynote does not support Active-X either, but it could if Apple were to port
Active-X to the Mac.

Some cool advanced features:
Check out the features on the Picture toolbar. There's a lot of customizing
you can do with pictures.
I like to get deep into the graphics toolbar features. Draw a shape using
the freeform tool on the line toolbar. Control-click the shape then choose
Edit Points. Control-click a point. Lots of fun things to play with there.
It's not a bad vector editing tool. I wish the layers were more apparent,
though (and yes, I submitted my wish). Formatting drawing objects and taking
clip-art apart is fun (control-click and ungroup sometimes several times in
succession).

-Jim









--
Jim Gordon
Mac MVP
**Everyone is encouraged to post answers to any unanswered questions
whenever you see one that you know the answer to.

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Thank you for your replies. I don't really understand

the purpose of a User Form. I just want our customers to
be able to create text boxes that can be edited (i.e.
typed in) while a show is running.

Ooops. Just realized that I neglected to answer this one.

A user form is what most of us would call a dialog box, for all practical
purposes.

You can create them in the Visual Basic editor and add all the text and other
controls we've been talking about.

It takes a bit of VB to get them to appear and disappear, but it's not insanely
complex. You could do something like what you're after by putting an action
button on a slide, have it invoke a macro that in turn invokes a user form you
created. The user types their info into that, clicks a "Done" button and you
can grab the text and do whatever you need to with it, including displaying it
in a normal text box on the PowerPoint slide.

 

[Sari]

The idea of being able to type over a slide during a show sounds
interesting. You can already write on a slide (control- click on a slide that
is playing) using the Pen feature. I wonder if that feature could be
expanded to include typing from the keyboard. You can send that suggestion
to Microsoft using the Feedback feature on PowerPoint's

help menu.

I didn't know it was possible to type on a running slide
until I saw the feature in a game we downloaded. When I
tried to find out how to do it, I learned about
VBA/Active X (I really don't know the difference! I know
VBA is a language, but I was just using the drop-down
menus on the Properties screen.) I never did figure out
how the creator of the game made his "score boxes," but
we improvised with the VBA editor to create our own--but
only on the PC. It doesn't work on the Mac.

Some cool advanced features:
Check out the features on the Picture toolbar. There's a lot of customizing
you can do with pictures.
I like to get deep into the graphics toolbar features. Draw a shape using
the freeform tool on the line toolbar. Control-click the shape then choose
Edit Points. Control-click a point. Lots of fun things to play with there.
It's not a bad vector editing tool. I wish the layers were more apparent,
though (and yes, I submitted my wish). Formatting drawing objects and taking
clip-art apart is fun (control-click and ungroup sometimes several times in
succession).

Thanks. We teach some of these features (formatting
pictures, grouping and ungrouping, etc.) in our beginning
and advanced courses. In Super Advanced we teach
hyperlinking (including kiosk mode) and some other
things. We are designing a new course as the next level
and were looking for new ideas. The VBA/Active X
controls are a great option, but I guess we'll do
something else for the Mac class. We're considering
doing something with charts and graphs. Our customers
are mostly K-12 media specialists and teachers, so these
features could be helpful to them.

Thanks again for all your help.

Sari

 

[David M. Marcovitz]

Sari,

All the VBA stuff in my book, Powerful PowerPoint for Educators, works on
Mac and PC. The book was written with your audience in mind. Check it
out at:

http://www.loyola.edu/education/PowerfulPowerPoint/

--David

--
David M. Marcovitz, Ph.D.
Director of Graduate Programs in Educational Technology
Loyola College in Maryland
Author of _Powerful PowerPoint for Educators_
http://www.loyola.edu/education/PowerfulPowerPoint/

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Hi David,

Thank you for posting your link. That looks like an excellent resource.
Another link to add to my favorites!

-Jim