Comments on: Two website additions: Properties in a standard module and a chapter on Names and Formula formatting

By: jkpieterse

jkpieterse — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 11:23:00 +0000

Tushar: "It will be an add-in that lists all the names in a workbook"

Wouldn't it be simpler to just refer to my Name Manager?

http://www.jkp-ads.com/OfficeMarketPlaceNM-en.asp

By: Rob van Gelder

Rob van Gelder — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 21:50:00 +0000

Tushar: please e-mail me your formula and a brief description of what you expected to see.
rob@ vangelder.co.nz
I'm not aware of any formulas it cannot handle.

Cheers

By: Alex J

Alex J — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 20:00:00 +0000

TM,
Thanks for the great reply. I'm not having much luck finding that item on Chip's site, though.

By: Jan

Jan — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 12:00:00 +0000

T M, you are absolutely right. My ramble was unclear and vague.
My intentions were to show that class modules are easy to use and that its a good idea to find a reason to use one. Also that people have already been using them for some time in the form or forms , which presumably they design and instanciate all the time.

I haven’t ever tried to use property proc in a normal module, I didn’t know they existed but to be honest I am not quite sure why I would use them, as its the same as a function with a static variable, and an optional parameter,(which have the added benefit of less module level variables and procedures, or even less modules as you don’t need to setup a specific option private module).

Also it might be worth considering the use of Enum to allow easy access to specific group of constants for example like the primary colours in Tushars interesting example.

Nice form Ross cute demo.

By: ross

ross — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 11:02:00 +0000

"A form is a class..."

and sometimes it's also an object! lol!

Option Explicit

Private Sub UserForm_Activate()
Dim form As UserForm1
Dim x As Integer
Me.Caption = "I was born on " & Time() & " - Is this visual inheritance?, lol"
For Each form In UserForms
form.Top = 100 + x
x = x + 30
Next
End Sub

Private Sub UserForm_Click()
Dim form As UserForm1
Set form = New UserForm1
form.Show
End Sub

By: Jan

Jan — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 10:53:00 +0000

Agreed Forms are Class modules.

By: Tushar Mehta

Tushar Mehta — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 01:58:00 +0000

Jan: I am not sure what point you were trying to make but one clarification. Class modules are not forms. Technically, it’s the other way around. A form is a class…well, kinda since it has some special capabilities built into it.

By: Tushar Mehta

Tushar Mehta — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 01:55:00 +0000

JKP: The missing section is something I haven’t done yet. It will be an add-in that lists all the names in a workbook. Doubt if it will be anything very sophisticated and for all I know the enhanced Name Manager in XL2007 might do all that I have planned for it. But, we will see.

By: Tushar Mehta

Tushar Mehta — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 01:53:00 +0000

Alex:

1) (a) Yes, they should. Though, IMO, making variables in a class public defeats the purpose of good OOP design.

(b) Yes, it should work in an add-in. As I wrote I don't quite remember where I actually used it but I don't release any code that is not an add-in. So, it must work in an add-in.

(c) Where would I use it? First of all, with caution since this use is not really documented anywhere and I have not tested it with anything but 2003. Also, keep in mind that a standard module always exists (there's no instantiation of an object based on it) and only one copy of it exists (there's no instantiation of it). So, it's a "cute" way to simplify access to something that other parts of the code might want to treat as a variable while internally support a more complex implementation.

One place where this might find some value is as a class level property or method. I forget what it is called -- one should be able to find the terminology in the OOP literature including the .Net literature -- but essentially it is global, i.e., shared by all instances of a class.

2) Chip Pearson has (had?) documented a non-standard (and a non-documented?) way of creating a global that is global to the Excel instance. You should be able to find the material, if it still exists, on his website at http://www.cpearson.com

By: Tushar Mehta

Tushar Mehta — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 01:41:00 +0000

Rob: Thanks for the pointer. From the limited tests with the add-in it would appear that it doesn't account for operator precedence and parenthesis overrides. Consequently, it did nothing for the formula I used in my example. Any plans to include that capability in the add-in?

Also, did you by any chance get the BNF for Excel formulas? I would love to lay my hands on it -- and particularly for the chart SERIES formula.