Word 2008 (office 2008) and Visual Basic

[Sol Apache]

Hello

I have read a note by someone (not in Microsoft) saying that Visual Basic
will no longer be available on the new Mac version, Word 2008, which will be
released at the end of this year.

Have checked MacTopia and the latest news releases from Microsoft, but
cannot see any mention of VB.

Can anyone confirm or deny this. If VB is disappearing, what will be the
alternative for automation on Macs.

Thanks in advance from a very anxious Sol

 

[Jonathan West]

Hello

I have read a note by someone (not in Microsoft) saying that Visual Basic
will no longer be available on the new Mac version, Word 2008, which will
be
released at the end of this year.

Have checked MacTopia and the latest news releases from Microsoft, but
cannot see any mention of VB.

Can anyone confirm or deny this. If VB is disappearing, what will be the
alternative for automation on Macs.

Thanks in advance from a very anxious Sol

Its true. You can see the announcements in the blogs of various Microsoft
people here

http://www.schwieb.com/blog/2006/08/08/saying-goodbye-to-visual-basic/
http://blogs.msdn.com/rick_schaut/archive/2006/08/09/693499.aspx

There are a lot of people who are very unhappy about this (myself included),
but it appears to be a done deal. As far as I can see, this means the end of
MacOffice before all that long. People will run Win Office under Parallels
instead.

But for those who want to keep running MacOffice, you'll need to convert all
your VBA to AppleScript instead. That is an even bigger rewrite job than the
conversion from VB6 to VB.NET a few years back (which a lot of people have
still not embarked on because of the scale of the task. Sometimes I think
Microsoft never learns.


--
Regards
Jonathan West - Word MVP
www.intelligentdocuments.co.uk
Please reply to the newsgroup
Keep your VBA code safe, sign the ClassicVB petition www.classicvb.org

 

[Sol Apache]

Thanks for the information Jonathan. Instead of an upgrade for macros we are
getting a downgrade to pre Word 6 days when the Mac version did not have
VBA.

I have been delving deeper into this and I understand Microsoft wanted to
get rid of VBA for Windows Office as well but could not because of the
outrage (much bigger than Mac outrage). It wants to replace VBA with dot net
(or net dot, can¹t remember which) and has delayed this for a decade.

Will dot net be running in Vista as an alternative to VBA so people can
start developing alternative macros?

Maybe, if Mac Office survives, dot net will be available eventually on Macs.
It will still mean learning a totally new language, which is a nuisance.

Another alternative could be to have AppleScript, dot net, Java - we can
choose what to use - just as with Adobe InDesign which has AppleScript, VB
and Java.

I do use Office for work purposes a lot but I rarely use Word personally any
more. I use InDesign and am trying to get as many clients to use that as
well (usually instead of Quark). Don¹t know of an alternative for Excel.

Notwithstanding all the reasons for not further developing VBA for Macs, I
think the main one is to preserve Windows for companies. The MacOS is too
much of a threat. I am very cynical about Microsoft¹s intentions.

 

[Jonathan West]

Thanks for the information Jonathan. Instead of an upgrade for macros we
are
getting a downgrade to pre Word 6 days when the Mac version did not have
VBA.

I have been delving deeper into this and I understand Microsoft wanted to
get rid of VBA for Windows Office as well but could not because of the
outrage (much bigger than Mac outrage). It wants to replace VBA with dot
net
(or net dot, can¹t remember which) and has delayed this for a decade.

Oh yes! I contributed in my own small way to that outrage. As a result we
have VBA in Office 2007 for Windows and a firm promise that it will be in
the next version as well. I would have loved to be a fly on the wall during
the discussions between the Office group and the Visual Studio group when
that divergence was deided on

Will dot net be running in Vista as an alternative to VBA so people can
start developing alternative macros?

Office 2007 has an upgraded version of Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO)
which is an alternative way of programming Office applications using the
..NET languages. I haven't used it yet myself, for three reasons.

1. Most of my customers don't use a version of Office that can support it
yet - I've quite a few customers still running Office 2000.

2. I'm not desperately keen to rewrite all my code unless & until I
absolutely must. That time has not yet come.

3. Those who have tried using VSTO are reporting dreadful problems with
deploying their applications, and I just don't want to go there yet. I'll
wait until somebody else has hacked a path through that jungle.

Maybe, if Mac Office survives, dot net will be available eventually on
Macs.
It will still mean learning a totally new language, which is a nuisance.

It is a nuisance. All I can suggest is to use whatever contacts you may have
in Microsoft and add your voice to the many calling for "language
stability", i.e. that new versions of a language can broadly speaking
compile & run programs written in the old version with minimal modification.

Another alternative could be to have AppleScript, dot net, Java - we can
choose what to use - just as with Adobe InDesign which has AppleScript, VB
and Java.

The MacBU has said that their solution is to improve support for
Applescript. We don't yet know what form those improvements will take.

I do use Office for work purposes a lot but I rarely use Word personally
any
more. I use InDesign and am trying to get as many clients to use that as
well (usually instead of Quark). Don¹t know of an alternative for Excel.

Notwithstanding all the reasons for not further developing VBA for Macs, I
think the main one is to preserve Windows for companies. The MacOS is too
much of a threat. I am very cynical about Microsoft¹s intentions.

I doubt that Microsoft has thought that far in respect of Mac Office. I get
the impression it is more a matter of a release date having been handed down
from on high and being told to hit that date with whatever features they can
include.


--
Regards
Jonathan West - Word MVP
www.intelligentdocuments.co.uk
Please reply to the newsgroup
Keep your VBA code safe, sign the ClassicVB petition www.classicvb.org

 

[Sol Apache]

Hi Jonathan

Thanks for your commments, and I¹ll send my protest to Microsoft.

I have been looking at Microsoft + .net stuff on Wikipedia and it seems that
Visual Basic is part of the .net but it must be some new variation? Haven¹t
had time to look at in depth yet but maybe it will enable the ³minimal
modification² you prefer.

The macros I use are pretty simple and limited, allowing some automation of
office templates with userforms. Hope these can easily be replaced by xCode
(AppleStudio) forms and that we can put AppleScripts in Word toolbar
buttons.

 

[Jonathan West]

Hi Jonathan

Thanks for your commments, and I¹ll send my protest to Microsoft.

I have been looking at Microsoft + .net stuff on Wikipedia and it seems
that
Visual Basic is part of the .net but it must be some new variation?
Haven¹t
had time to look at in depth yet but maybe it will enable the ³minimal
modification² you prefer.

Alas no. That was the reason for the great hullaballoo. VB.NET is for all
practical purposes an entirely new language with a syntax that is vaguely
similar to the old. They haven't even kept the same names for basic
datatypes. In VBA & VB6, a 16-bit integer is named Integer and a 32-bit
integer is named Long. In VB.NET they are Short and Integer respectively.
The names of keywords, objects, properties and methods in VB6 and its Forms
library, there is about an equal 3-way split between items which are the
same in name & behavior, items which are significantly different in name
and/or behavior, and items for which there is no direct equivalent in
VB.NET. That doesn't even remotely correspond to "minimal modification".

Microsoft produced a book on migrating VB6 applications to VB.NET. It takes
about 700 pages to tell you that you will have to rewrite just about
anything more complex than a "Hello World" sample app.

At least one VB MVP has been thrown out of the MVP program for loudly
proclaiming how stupid all this is. (I'm fairly safe, the Office people
agree with me at least in part, although they are very guarded about saying
so.)

The macros I use are pretty simple and limited, allowing some automation
of
office templates with userforms. Hope these can easily be replaced by
xCode
(AppleStudio) forms

You will have to rewrite them. There is most unlikely to be any kind of
automated conversion, not least because the forms engine of AppleScript
Studio, while much more powerful on the Mac than VBA UserForms, they way you
code it is completely different.

and that we can put AppleScripts in Word toolbar
buttons.

Nobody is saying anything about the interaction between AppleScript and the
new UI, but the beta should be out before too long and we will then see.


--
Regards
Jonathan West - Word MVP
www.intelligentdocuments.co.uk
Please reply to the newsgroup
Keep your VBA code safe, sign the ClassicVB petition www.classicvb.org