Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with visualbasic

MacgyverFilter: link sharing using MS Office

Monday, stony Monday — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:23:17 -0800

Macgyver IT: I want my team to use something like del.icio.us to share links. But since this is ask.metafilter, I can't use the obvious right answer. I need to make something like it myself, using ~~bubblegum and string~~ the MS Office 2000 suite and my knowledge of VB. What would be my best approach? This is clearly insane, but I want to try (please don't ask why I can't use something reasonable -- I just can't). I don't need the full del.icio.us, just links and tags. I'm also okay with having only one person at a time able to add a link to the dB, and everyone sharing a big ball of links.

I've thought about using an Excel file, but I don't know if there's a reasonable way to do that, or what that way would be. Could that work, or should I bite the bullet and go for Access? Is there a feature hidden somewhere (in Outlook?) that I'm overlooking?

Creating video from a program help

JohnGL — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 16:16:24 -0800

I'm looking for a library, package, product or some sample code in either JAVA or Visual Basic that would allow me to create a video from my program. I have some software tools I've developed and I'd like some functionality to my program that could take existing video clips and pictures and then assemble them into a video. I would like the final video format to be FLV however any popular format would do. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Have a great one.

Visual Basic hates me: [x]yes []no

icarus — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 05:22:55 -0800

Homeworkfilter: I'm using VB 2008 Express and I need some help with checkboxes. 1. I have 12 checkboxes and I need each of these to pass an integer value of 0 (unchecked) or 1 (checked) to the next window when the "next" button is clicked.

2. For bonus credit and a gold star: I need to pass values from 12 dropdown boxes (each has 3-5 possible options).

Ex. How can I assign an integer value of 3 to the 1st item in the dropdown? How do I then pass this value of 3 to the next window where it will be multiplied by the checkox value?

Any help is appreciated

Help me make sense of excel and VB

icarus — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 08:14:42 -0800

I want to take a small worksheet I created in excel and turn it into a standalone application. How? I've made a pretty simple excel sheet budget that calculates values for certain criteria and shows totals for 10 years for various budgeting cases.

I want to make this into an application using VB so that a someone can execute it, type in values into fields, rather than cells, and so that a chart output is displayed given the totals when a user submits all the values.

Anyone want to help me figure out where to start? I'm thinking I should use visual basic since that is the only thing I am (a little) familiar with.

Help mefi geniuses!

Double Click Me All The Way To Heaven

Brettus — Mon, 18 May 2009 14:11:04 -0800

Visual Basic 6 Filter: Double click on file, my program opens that file. How do I do it? Quick Summary: I have a program that I have written in VB6. I would like to associate this program with a file extension. When I double click on a file with this extension (BRD) I want my program to automatically open with that file loaded.

I was able to make this work on the command line. If I type
"myexecutable.exe openthisfile.brd"
then my program opens that file. I used this code...

Private Sub Form_Load()
If ((Command <> "") And (FileExists(Command))) Then
OpenSoundBoard(Command)
End If
End Sub

I am not concerned with registering my program with Windows. I would like, however, to always open BRD files with my program. I have done this without using the registry by telling Windows to always use myprogram.exe to open BRD files. However, when I double click on a BRD file myprogram.exe throws an error:

Run-time Error '52':

Bad file name or number

I don't know the terminology for this problem, so searching for an answer has been unfruitful. I am no expert in VB, but I know enough to get myself into trouble - as I have done here. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks MeFites!

How do I replace a Visual Basic 6 runtime file killed by a Windows security update?

bcwinters — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 08:47:48 -0800

A Visual Basic 6 (ugh) runtime file distributed with our internal Access database has been killed by a recent Windows security update. It's hard to gather support information (especially since VB6 is about 8.7 million years old) and so I was wondering if anyone out there can help me track down a more recent copy of the runtime file in question—msflxgrd.ocx—or otherwise fix the problem? It's my understanding from reading a couple of tech forums that there is a patched version of msflxgrd.ocx that was rolled out in a VB6 security update some time in the last few years. However, we don't have VB6 installed on any of our machines so I can't run the patch program to get this one updated file. I don't want to get a copy from one of those FREE OCX W00T! websites that come up when searching for the filename, for pretty obvious reasons. Can anyone recommend a better way to get a copy?

In the meantime we have been uninstalling KB960715 on our PCs as a temporary workaround. I believe I could rewrite a key in the registry to make the security update stop killing the OCX but I would prefer not to meddle on individual machines like that if possible.

Any advice appreciated. Thanks!

P.S. I am WELL aware that we should be moving onwards and upwards with more modern tech, but for the short-to-medium term the nonprofit using this system really doesn't have the time or resources to rewrite the front end to use something other than this control. (Honestly, I'm really hoping to get something out to them today so they can get some work done again!)

Stupid Outlook! No cookie!

IAmBroom — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 14:38:19 -0800

VBA programmers: is there any way to control the formatting of Outlook Contacts Body text? (The "Body", BTW, is the large "notes" section at the bottom of the Contacts form.)

My searches on internet forums have proven useless, and I even got an MS online tech support person to say it probably couldn't be done (but I've proven them wrong before, so it's not exactly like visiting the Oracle at Delphi).

Here's some ideas I've tried, and why they don't work:

mapiContacts.ContactItems(i).BodyFormat = olFormatPlain
(Turns out the BodyFormat property is only available for mail & post items, despite what it suggests under Help for ContactItems.Body).

Dim str As String
str = mapiContacts.ContactItems(i).BodyFormat
mapiContacts.ContactItems(i).BodyFormat = str
(This requires every stinking Contact to be updated, every time I run this program.)

How to automatically clear Outlook secure temp folder?

paulyballs — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 12:22:45 -0800

Does any know how to create a script to automatically empty the Outlook secure temp folder when exiting Outlook? For some of my users this folder is filling up way too often and then they are unable to view images in Outlook (only see red x). Since there is no permanent solution, does anyone know of a way to write a script that automatically empty this folder when the user closes Outlook?

Decimal seconds, please.

dondiego87 — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 14:03:50 -0800

Microsoft Excel VBA question: Converting decimal degrees to degrees-minutes-seconds (DMS), with rounding customization. I'm pretty proficient with Excel but am a complete n00b when it comes to programming even Visual Basic. I needed to convert some decimal degrees into DMS format, and failing to find a function that did so, I went to Google and found this page. Surprisingly enough, both of those modules worked successfully, allowing me to access them through the Function menu. I was even able to figure out how to change the function name to something I find clearer.

My one gripe about the Decimal-to-DMS conversion is that it doesn't allow for any numbers after the decimal point in the Seconds part of the output. I wouldn't usually mind (I know how tiny a second is), but I'm using this for a mapping application where meters matter, and the rounding is throwing me off. Can the hive mind help me get decimal seconds?

Can't calculate paired T-value in Visual Basic

JeNeSaisQuoi — Fri, 16 May 2008 02:53:16 -0800

Visual Basic and Excel: How do I replicate the results of excel’s internal function for paired dual tailed t-test in Visual Basic. I tried and failed, where did I go wrong? I’m admittedly a novice at Visual basic, but I succeeded in reproducing the t-test for Two-sample equal variance (homoscedastic) in Visual Basic. TTEST(array1,array2,2,2). I’m at a loss why I can’t be able to do the same for the paired t-test.

One possible explanation could be that I’m not using the same formula as excel does, but the formula that excel uses for the TTEST(array1,array2,2,1) is nowhere to be found. I used the formula in my statistics book that agreed with the one called Dependent t-test from the Wikipedia page for student’s T-test .
Is that the one excel uses for its TTEST(array1,array2,2,1) function?

Where else could I have gone wrong?

This is the code I made (again, I’m a novice, be gentle):

'The input consist of the area the data is located in, the columns containing the data we will use and the number of rows the area consist of
Function t_test1(area, column1, column2, NoOfRows)

Dim i, X_SubD, X_SubD2, Sample_stdev, T_TestValue

'Will eventually become the average difference
X_SubD = 0

'Will eventually become the sum of squared difference
X_SubD2 = 0
Sample_stdev = 0

For i = 1 To NoOfRows

X_SubD = X_SubD + (area(i, column1) - area(i, column2))

X_SubD2 = X_SubD2 + (area(i, column1) - area(i, column2)) ^ 2

Next i

'Calculate the average
X_SubD = X_SubD / NoOfRows

'Calculate the sample standard deviation
Sample_stdev = ((X_SubD2 - NoOfRows * X_SubD ^ 2) / (NoOfRows - 1)) ^ 0.5

'Calculate T-value
T_TestValue = X_SubD / (Sample_stdev / (NoOfRows ^ 0.5))

'Look up the significance and return the value
If T_TestValue < 0 Then
t_test1 = Application.WorksheetFunction.TDist(-T_TestValue, 2 * NoOfRows - 1, 2)
Else
t_test1 = Application.WorksheetFunction.TDist(T_TestValue, 2 * NoOfRows - 1, 2)
End If

End Function

Visual Basic Communities

grahamwell — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 21:38:56 -0800

Visual Basic communities. Where can I find a supportive community that will help me become a better VB .NET programmer? I'm writing a rather complex .NET application, using Google to get answers to my (rather frequent) questions. In doing so I find helpful contributions in communities such as vbdotnetheaven, devcity and so on. I keep feeling I should pause a little, join up and start contributing.

I'm prepared to put in some effort, contribute, build a profile and hopefully become a better programmer as a result. My question is, where do I put in the time?

I'm not smart enough for MSDN. The stuff there makes my brain hurt. I need something a little clearer, simpler, without being completely - well, Basic.

Fed up with Microsoft (.NET)

jjsonp — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 11:36:46 -0800

Best programming language for internal automation? I don't have any formal programming training but have written and read enough that my code is fairly 'tight' - all object-oriented, all of my projects utilize code-reuse from the classes I've created, etc.

I write programs to automate tasks I perform as a DB admin. I have one intra-office app with an interface but all the others are just desktop apps (most without forms) for automation - a lot of data-access, file preparation & archival, data-logging, etc. We are on a Microsoft platform so most of my code is in VB6, some in VB.NET, some in VBScript, and some in SQL. I have flirted with JavaScript and C# and don't think I'd have much trouble switching.

Over the years I've grown increasingly frustrated at Microsoft's direction with regards to the security implementation in Vista, the ever-changing/expanding nature of .NET, etc. After a year of wanting to wipe Vista I finally did, putting 64-bit XP on my machine...what a relief! I've also seen the advantages of open source - its flexibility, availability, cross-platform nature, and constant innovation by other programmers and users.

Anyway, after re-installing everything, some of my compiled VB.NET programs no longer work! The particular project sparking this question was compiled and stable for over a year on 32-bit XP and Vista; it is suddenly broken (even after I checked to ensure it was compiled to run on x86 - a gotcha I'd already run into on 64-bit). I have had this happen before when the latest & greatest '.NET framework' or VisualStudio version was released, and frankly I'm sick of it.

After struggling for hours to track down the reason for my program suddenly being broken I just said "screw it" and started re-writing it in VBScript...though there are lots of disadvantages to a scripting language (especially error-handling and forms), the BIG advantage is that every VBScript program I've written during the past 7 years still works perfectly on the 8 or 10 flavors of Windows on my network. I never have to install special frameworks or DLLs (depending upon what object model I'm referencing) or anything else - it just works.

So my question is this: what would you recommend for non-web intranet programming of the sort I'm doing? Something that will work well on all flavors of Windows from 2000 Server to Vista 64, allow disk and network drive access (with the Windows Server security model), easy data access for SQL Server and Microsoft Access, etc.? A good IDE would be nice too, particularly when I'm learning the language - please throw in any IDE recommendations you have as well (Sharp?).

I'm guessing Java would be the way to go but I'm just wondering if there are other recommendations. Thanks!

VB in the tree

dnthomps — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 21:39:46 -0800

vbFilter: Outputting results to a treeview object in Excel. Currently I am working on a script that will query an access DB and look for the first 4 users that's dates are less than 5 days of the current date which is shown below.

The current script is running in Excel's VB compiler. The one thing I want to do is output the results to a treeview object in excel.

Private Sub UserForm_Initialize()
Label1.Caption = Date
On Error GoTo Error
Dim cnn As New ADODB.Connection
Dim rst As New ADODB.Recordset
cnn.Open "Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;" & _
"Data Source=F:\SAIO\Users.mdb"
Dim i As Integer
rst.Open "SELECT [ntlogin] FROM [scon] GROUP BY [ntlogin]" & _
" HAVING (Max([date]) <>

-- Feel free to probe me for more information if you need.

Stupid database! Be more connecty!

Brainy — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 07:33:07 -0800

Can I connect a flash program to a local offline Access database without having to run my computer as a webserver? I would like to use Flash as a front end for a local Access database. Ideally, to run a swf file and connect to an access .mdb on the network, or in the same folder if need be. All searches for tutorials brought me running .asp on a webserver and I'd rather not have to do that.

I know very little about Flash, nothing about .ASP (which all the tutorials seem to suggest), a decent understanding of MySQL, VB and a good understanding of database theory.

If you have any other suggestions, I'll gladly read and investigate, but I'm a designer by trade not a programmer so I'm limited in what I can learn or buy.

Why not use Access itself? Well, because I'm writing a program for relative computer illiterates that will replace a task that's been done by hand for years. So the more I can hold their hand, interfacewise (sliding transitions from one form to another) and the more I can make the metaphors work the way they should as opposed to just dressing them up, the more comfortable they'll feel, the smoother the transition will be, the more tickertape parades for me.

I realize there are more advanced development environments that connect to Access, but since all the work I'll be doing can be applied back to the database in simple queries they all seem to be overkill. And flash seems to be the easiest development environment that suited itself to "flashy" applications and animations (and I already have it...)

Don't worry, this isn't mission critical or anything.

How do I get the names of an ActiveX control's members?

matthewr — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 13:20:00 -0800

I have to write a Visual Basic 6 program that checks that an ActiveX control's properties and methods are correctly documented in a Word document. How do I get a list of a control's properties and methods, given its filename? Given the filename 'MyControl.ocx', for example, how would I obtain an array of its properties and methods?

I have OLE Viewer, a Microsoft utility that can generate IDL information for an ActiveX control. This contains, amongst other junk, all the control's properties and methods. Running 'oleview.exe "C:/path/to/MyControl.ocx"' generates the IDL in a window - is there a way of saving this IDL stuff to a file using a command-line option that I could call from VB? If so, I could open up the saved IDL file and use VB's (limited) string functions to get a list of properties and methods.

Is there, however, an easier way?

Ideally, I'd like to be able to do CreateObject("MyControlName") and then use some VB function to get a collection of the class member names. All the controls I want to check are registered on my PC.

(I'm stuck with VB6 since my work PC is ancient.)

Thanks in advance.

Loops, Loops, Loops

fvox13 — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 18:29:33 -0800

Alright Visual Basic Gurus: Do your worst! Why Can't I Loop? (VB6) This code makes sense to me, but when I run it, it says "Loop Without Do". Any suggestions on how to fix?

Dim FirstPaymentDate As Date
Dim CurrRowValue As Single
Dim NumStudentsInFlex2 As Single
NumStudentsInFlex2 = MSHFlexGrid2.Rows
CurrRowVal = 1
Do While CurrRowVal < NumStudentsInFlex2 'While counter is less than number of rows in all students grid
YesDate = 0
MSHFlexGrid2.Row = CurrRowVal
'MsgBox CurrRowVal & "(" & MSHFlexGrid2.Row & ")" & " / " & MSHFlexGrid2.Rows & " " & MSHFlexGrid2.TextMatrix(MSHFlexGrid2.Row, 0)
If MSHFlexGrid2.TextMatrix(CurrRowVal, 2) = Date Then
MSHFlexGrid1.AddItem (MSHFlexGrid2.TextMatrix(MSHFlexGrid2.Row, 0)) & vbTab & "First Bill"
CurrRowVal = CurrRowVal + 1
Loop
End If
If MSHFlexGrid2.TextMatrix(CurrRowVal, 3) = Date Then
MSHFlexGrid1.AddItem (MSHFlexGrid2.TextMatrix(MSHFlexGrid2.Row, 0)) & vbTab & "Last Bill"
CurrRowVal = CurrRowVal + 1
Loop
End If
FirstPaymentDate = MSHFlexGrid2.TextMatrix(MSHFlexGrid2.Row, 2)
YesDate = 0
If Format(Date, "MM/DD/YYYY") = Format(DateAdd("m", 1, FirstPaymentDate), "MM/DD/YYYY") Then YesDate = 1
If Format(Date, "MM/DD/YYYY") = Format(DateAdd("m", 2, FirstPaymentDate), "MM/DD/YYYY") Then YesDate = 1
If Format(Date, "MM/DD/YYYY") = Format(DateAdd("m", 3, FirstPaymentDate), "MM/DD/YYYY") Then YesDate = 1
If Format(Date, "MM/DD/YYYY") = Format(DateAdd("m", 4, FirstPaymentDate), "MM/DD/YYYY") Then YesDate = 1
If Format(Date, "MM/DD/YYYY") = Format(DateAdd("m", 5, FirstPaymentDate), "MM/DD/YYYY") Then YesDate = 1
If Format(Date, "MM/DD/YYYY") = Format(DateAdd("m", 6, FirstPaymentDate), "MM/DD/YYYY") Then YesDate = 1
If Format(Date, "MM/DD/YYYY") = Format(DateAdd("m", 7, FirstPaymentDate), "MM/DD/YYYY") Then YesDate = 1
If Format(Date, "MM/DD/YYYY") = Format(DateAdd("m", 8, FirstPaymentDate), "MM/DD/YYYY") Then YesDate = 1
If Format(Date, "MM/DD/YYYY") = Format(DateAdd("m", 9, FirstPaymentDate), "MM/DD/YYYY") Then YesDate = 1
If YesDate = 1 Then MSHFlexGrid1.AddItem (MSHFlexGrid2.TextMatrix(MSHFlexGrid2.Row, 0)) & vbTab & "Interval Bill"
CurrRowVal = CurrRowVal + 1
Loop

VB? WTF? :(

(lambda (x) x) — Wed, 17 May 2006 12:57:03 -0800

After spending so many years in *nix environments, I need to get up to speed with Microsoft products (specifically vb.net) without losing my sanity. I'm graduating this weekend with a BS in computer science and am on the prowl for employment. I've been working primarily in a Linux environment for most of my life and was employed as a *nix admin at my university during the entire course of my stay there, dabbling with Microsoft products only when absolutely necessary.

Unfortunately there are very few opportunities for tech work in my area, and I can't immediately jump ship for a number of financial and personal reasons. In other words, I'm looking for just about anything now, hoping that I'll be able to perhaps move and find something more ideal in two years or so. The best prospect I've found so far is an almost exclusively-Microsoft shop. The pay is decent and I know a few of the employees who seem to be pretty happy there, but I was told that if I were hired, one of my first projects would be assisting in porting a pretty large application from VB5(!) to VB.NET. So, I guess I'm going to need to learn pre-and-post .NET VB. There are going to be a few more experienced developers on the project, but I'd like to get up to speed as quickly as possible in order to do my fair share. They're aware of my lack of experience with the environment, but have expressed interest in me anyway.

I'm aware of VB's rather.. lackluster reputation and so I ask you, dear mefites, if you can suggest anything to make this process less painful. What are some good VB/.NET books? Are there any IDEs besides visual studio worth checking out? (currently, I use emacs + gnumake + sometimes ant) What's up with unit testing in a .NET environment? Any other words of wisdom?

I want to make it clear that I'm not totally inexperienced with application development in general, just with VB or pretty much anything else Microsoft. Most of the graphical standalone applications I've had a hand in were Qt based, written in either c++ or one of the higher level languages with qt bindings (python). Thanks!

How do I make my application work on all computers?

fvox13 — Tue, 09 May 2006 21:06:50 -0800

How can I bundle OCXs, DLLs, and other required files with my Visual Basic application? VB6 - I'm done with writing my big Tuition and Billing program, and I've been testing it out on several machines, in several locations. On some, it won't work, and a runtime error is thrown that says it can't find a particular DLL or OCX or reference. Is there a compile option I can use to include these files, or some way to make my installer install them (I use the Nullsoft NSIS installer)? Anything else I should be aware of as far as including runtimes or anything else I need?

Thanks!

Visual Basic 6 Date Comparison by Month

fvox13 — Wed, 05 Apr 2006 18:31:08 -0800

Last Minute Visual Basic 6 Help!!! How do I compare a given date to today's date, based on a number of months? I'm writing a tuition and billing program for my former high school, which is due tomorrow. The only part that's really making me unsure of my abilities is the part that generates bills. I've got it set up so the user can generate by date, student, and tuition plan. It's the date part that is throwing me for a loop.

What I'm looking for is some way to compare a date like so:
If Date = FirstPaymentDueDate + (one month) Then (do stuff)
If Date = FirstPaymentDueDate + (two months) Then (do stuff)
etc.
(where FirstPaymentDueDate is a pre-existing variable of type Date)

Is there some easy way to do this (that is, fill in the code for "one month" and "two months")? Or do I have to use some sort of brutal string manipulation?

Thanks!

How do I import from one database into another?

fvox13 — Thu, 16 Mar 2006 13:10:24 -0800

How can I import selected fields from one database into another database? I'm writing a tuition and billing management program for my high school, and they'd like to be able to import students from WinSchool (MS Access Database) and EZ-Care (Fox Pro Database), as well as a CSV file, into the database I'm designing for use with my program. The database I'm working with is MS Access 97, with a Visual Basic 6 front end. Ideally, I'd like to create a program or find a free utility I can bundle with the software that would let the user select column names from the source database and then insert all of the records into the target database, kind of like a mail-merge-type thing where you can "match fields". Some of the fields would have to be filled in with zeros and such automatically by the program.

Anyone have code examples? A freeware application? A way to do it in Access itself?

Carriage Returns in Excel

godawful — Fri, 10 Feb 2006 14:02:14 -0800

It's not how I'd choose to spend my Friday evening, but for the last few hours, I've been trying to replace carriage returns that have turned up in an Access and Excel file, and drawing a blank. I've done a thorough search of the archive, and I don't think this has come up before. I've also googled around and looked at specialist forums to no avail.

So, someone's kindly entered the text of about 200 articles into an Access database. They're destined for a website. Each one is paragraphed with what I assume are standard carriage returns which I need to turn into html paragraphs. (Once this is done, I plan to somehow import them articles and their metadata into the right columns of a mysql database.)

At the moment, I'm working on this data in Excel, which was the only way I could find to access it on my Mac. I'm also more au fait with Excel than Access.

I've tried a find and replace on the column of article texts, only to find that there's no way to tell Excel to find a return.

Another horrible hack I thought up was to use 'Text to Columns' using the returns as a delimiter. I could then have inserted tags and concatenated the new columns back together. Again I found no way to specify the return as a delimiter.

I found this note on a way to specify character codes, but I couldnt' make it work in these two cases. Are Mac character codes different?

I tried to use these character codes by adding a column next to the article text column (which is column K) with this formula:
=SUBSTITUTE(K2,CHAR(010),"

")

Again, no dice. It makes no substitutions at all.

Finally, I saved as a .csv, opened it in Textwrangler, and used an appropriate regular expression. It made the changes, but then I couldn't open the file in Excel. Something about a Sylk error.

If there's a simple way to do this in Access that I missed, I could go back to that.

Am I going to have to use VBA? There's a suggestion at the foot of this thread, but I don't know how to make it work.

As always, I'll be very grateful for any help at all.

What are good free programming language environments?

pracowity — Fri, 30 Dec 2005 17:34:56 -0800

What are good free programming language learning environments? I haven't programmed in years and I'm thinking about starting again and learning a current language. I don't know C or any of its children and I don't know OOP. What language should I go for and what free packages are available for the learner and hobbyist? I would be running it on a Windows XP system and I would not want to install another OS.

Visual Basic 6.0 and Access 2003 question.

ttrendel — Wed, 26 Jan 2005 11:49:59 -0800

Visual Basic 6.0 and Access 2003 question.....(more inside) Visual Basic 6.0's integrated Visual Data manager saves all db's in access 97 format. When I need to build a relationship between two databases created with the visual data manager, I have to convert the db to access 2004 format and then back again so I can manipulate the db through the visual data manager. I've looked all over MS's website and can't find any update that adresses this. Is there anyway i can avoid constantly converting the db's?

Is there any way to make Excel macros less stupid?

squidlarkin — Wed, 05 Jan 2005 08:33:40 -0800

Is there any way to make Excel macros less stupid? [MI] So say for instance I want a macro that will, among other things, copy the contents of the current cell and paste them in the next. If I try to record such a macro, and the cell I start with contains "chickens", the macro will cheerfully paste "chickens" in the next cell even if I run it from a cell which contains "velociraptors". Clearly this is suboptimal.

I'm fully willing to learn visual basic if it'll do the sorts of things I want it to, I just want to know if it will before I waste any effort on it.

p2p programming languages

reklaw — Wed, 02 Jun 2004 09:29:17 -0800

If you were writing a new p2p application -- leaving ethical and legal issues aside for a moment -- which programming language would you use? I know Visual Basic and PHP, but neither is really any good for this purpose. I dislike things that require the user to install a big VM (.NET, Java) and find C++ a complete nightmare. Forgot to mention: cross-platform and/or open source would be excellent, but not required.