I'm currently developing an Excel Add-in written in VBA and using Excel with its Visual Basic editor. My problem is that Excel will compile the code into a single {Addin}.xlam file that's useless for version control and restricts me to only using the Visual Basic editor, which is difficult and awkward to use on Mac.
I'm aware of tools like Rubberduck and XlTools, but these all seem to be restricted to working only within Excel. What I'm looking for is a CLI tool with convenient functions like:
vba build src/ (constructs a workable .xlam from src files)
vba extract addin.xlam (extracts src files from .xlam)
This would be really helpful so that I can use version control as well as Visual Studio to write VBA.
I need to open an Excel file for editing included in a Visual Basic project
I'm able to open it using Excel application. The file is opened in an external Excel instance.
Is there an extension that allows to open Excel files inside Visual Studio as other documents?
Update: I'm searching something similar to Excel Viewer but I need an extension for Visual Studio (not Code) and I need an editor to modify the content of Excel files. I think that the extension has to do something similar to How to Integrate Excel in a Windows Form Application using the WebBrowser.
Maybe you could try to modify the Excel file as a csv file instead, depending on how complex you file is (if it contains formulas it will not work). I have tried using csv before and I did not notice much difference between csv and excel files when I was using it and csv could easily get data, but if you need formulas, you may have to compute them in your code before editing the file.
I believe you can just right click on the file and select Open With > Visual Studio. Or within Visual Studio go to the Menu Bar and select File > Open and seect the file. Hope this helps!
What is the relationship between Visual Studio IDE and the Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications environment?
A colleague provided a VB script for manipulating Excel worksheets. Her script works well, and I'm using the task and her script to learn VB.
Instead of Visual Studio, her instructions have me open her Excel XLSM file and open the VB editor using Develop tab > Visual Basic button (or Alt-F11). There are three projects: ATPVBAEN.XLAM (The Analysis toolpack) which is password-locked, FUNCRES.XLAM (which contains two Sub, neither of which is named Main, and no Modules), and a project from my colleagues XSLM file, which contains one Sub, which is also not named Main. Is there a Main in the locked file, or is a Main not needed as described in Structure of a Visual Basic Program ?
I use macros extensively for ViewModel properties in XAML development. I use them even more in WCF to generate Message and DataContract properties.
To my disappointment, the macros I've built aren't going to be usable in Visual Studio 2012.
An example of what I'm talking about, for a VM, I would enter something like this.
int id;
string name;
Select both lines, run a macro and end up with
private int _id;
private string _name;
public int Id
{
get {return _id;}
set
{
if(_id != value)
{
_id = value;
RaisePropertyChanged("Id");
}
}
public string Name
{
if(_name != value)
{
_name = value;
RaisePropertyChanged("Name");
}
}
I'm looking for ideas of other solutions deal with losing macros.
The simplest alternative to macros is creating add-ins. I know, I know, I wasn't excited about it either, but it's actually surprisingly easy. There are three simple parts to it:
Create the macro project, stepping through a wizard UI.
Write your code.
Copy the macro's .addin and .dll files to your Visual Studio Addins directory.
Let's take a simple macro I wrote to show the Start Page after closing a solution and turn it into an add-in.
Create the macro project
Run VS 2012 and create a new project.
Go to Templates > Other Project Types > Extensibility and select Visual Studio Add-in.
Give it a name, such as ShowStartPage.
Click OK. This brings up the Add-in Wizard.
Step through the wizard, choosing:
Programming language: we'll use C#
Application host: VS 2012 should be selected
Name and description for your add-in
On the add-in options page, checkmark only the second option ("I would like my Add-in to load when the host application starts")
Skip past the About Box stuff for now, and click Finish.
Now you have an add-in project. Here's what you do with it:
Write the code
Open the Connect.cs file. (It might already be open. Some of the "DTE" stuff should look familiar.)
Add this code at class level:
SolutionEvents solutionEvents;
Add this code to the OnConnection method, right after the _addInInstance = (AddIn)addInInst; line:
solutionEvents = _applicationObject.Events.SolutionEvents;
solutionEvents.AfterClosing += () =>
{
_applicationObject.ExecuteCommand("View.StartPage");
};
Hit the "Run" button to test your code. A new instance of Visual Studio 2012 starts up, with your add-in loaded. Now test the add-in and make sure it works. (Open a solution, then close it; the Start Page should return when you do.)
Deploy it
Once the add-in works, to use it regularly with Visual Studio 2012, you only need to deploy two files:
ShowStartPage.AddIn (from your main project directory)
ShowStartPage.dll (from your project's build directory; e.g. bin\Debug or bin\Release)
Put those two files in your VS 2012 add-ins directory, probably located here:
C:\Users\[your user name]\Documents\Visual Studio 2012\Addins
Then exit and restart Visual Studio, and you should see your add-in working. You should also see it listed when you go to Tools > Add-in Manager.
While this is a bit more of a nuisance than just opening the macro editor and sticking your macro code in there, it does have the advantage that you can use any language you want, instead of being stuck with the somewhat flaky VB-like editor in past versions of Visual Studio.
The Visual Commander extension (developed by me) is an alternative to macros in Visual Studio 2012/2013/2015. You can even reuse your existing Visual Studio macros code in new VB commands.
I'll stick to cutting the text into Notepad++ and using macros there, then pasting back. It is a shame the feature isn't in Visual Studio 2012 any more...
There is an add-in, VSScript, for Visual Studio which replaces missing macros functionality. Although it does not use Visual Basic, but the Lua scripting language, you might want to try it out.
There is a recorder, macro code editor window with IntelliSense, and a simple debugger. The add-in also supports earlier versions of Visual Studio, so if you prefer the Lua language rather than Visual Basic, you can use it instead original Visual Studio macros.
I was very sad to see Macros go too. You can get close with substitutions using the regular expression search and replace inside of Visual Studio 2012. In your case:
Find:
(.*) (.*);
Replace with:
private $1 _$2;\npublic $1 $2\n{\n get {return _$2;}\n set\n {\n if(_$2 = value;\n RaisePropertyChanged("$2");\n }\n}\n
That will get you everything except capitalization of property names which Macros would be better for.
But one advantage of the regular expression approach is when the input isn't as simple (e.g. database table DDL statements).
Here are a couple of useful links from MSDN:
Substitutions in Regular Expressions
Using Regular Expressions in Visual Studio
I use Notepad++ with regular expressions like this:
Find:
public (.\*) (.)(.*) \\{ get; set; \\}
Replace:
private \1 \l(\2)\3; \r\n public \1 \2\3 \\{ get \\{ return \l(\2)\3; \\} \r\n set \\{ \l(\2)\3 = value; OnPropertyChanged\(para => this\.\2\3\); \\}\\}
Check out http://devexpress.com/coderush
The templates feature does pretty much what you want.
There is a free "Express" version too.
Visual Studio 2012's lack of macros was getting me down, as I have a few that I use literally all the time to insert standard little bits of text with a single keypress. So I wrote a very simple scripts extensibility package, VSScripts, which allows manipulation of the current selection from a command-line program.
This doesn't claim to be some all-encompassing full replacement for the old macro system, and it doesn't provide keyboard macros, but it does make it possible to recreate many types of text manipulation macro.
Here's what I did to keep my macro functionality...
Download and install the Visual Studio 2012 SDK here (it contains the "Visual Studio Package" template)
New project -> Installed.Templates.Visual C#.Extensibility.Visual Studio Package
Wizard page 1 of 7
language = C#
gen new key is fine, or use another if you have one
wizard page 3 of 7
check "menu command"
Wizard page 7 of 7
uncheck both integration and unit test project options
Click finish
In the .cs file:
using EnvDTE;
using EnvDTE80;
...
private void MenuItemCallback(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
MenuCommand cmd = sender as MenuCommand;
// This should start to look like familiar macro code...
EnvDTE80.DTE2 dte2 = Package.GetGlobalService(typeof(EnvDTE.DTE)) as DTE2;
TextSelection selection = (TextSelection)dte2.ActiveDocument.Selection;
dte2.UndoContext.Open("macro command replacement");
selection.Text = "inserted from macro replacement";
selection.NewLine(1);
dte2.UndoContext.Close();
...
Run the project. A new Visual Studio instance will start with the package loaded.
Find your command as the first entry at the top of the Tools menu. Click it to see if it works.
To install for real, go to your bin\debug(/release) directory and double-click on the .vsix file
It should be installed for the next time you run
Go to menu Tools -> Options... -> environment.keyboard and map a keystroke to your tool
Mapping theme : Visual C# 2005
Command : Tool.yourFunctionName (functions defined in the .vsct file)
If you want more than one command, you will need to add menu id's in the PkgCmdID.cs, Guids in the Guids.cs, layouts in the .vsct and a function in the *package.cs (and button(MenuCommand) in the Initialize function) for each one. It can all be done in the same project.
I used this project to create several new 'tools' with my old macro code, then mapped my keys to them. It's a lot more work (and headaches) up front, but doesn't have the lag time that macros had.
There is probably a way to do this without having it take up tool menus. I started looking at this last night and finally got it to work, so I'm done with it for now (at least until Microsoft decides to drop this too).
Personally I like this one - the Visual Commander extension lets you automate repetitive tasks in Visual Studio.
I understand the C++ and C syntax, but im a little unsure how i am supposed to code in the VS2010 environment, when i create a project i am presented with folders such as headers and sources.
What c++ code goes into which folder?
Also, how would it work for C?
.h files go into headers, .cpp files go into sources.
Project->Add Class will do the work for you
I agree that Visual Studio can be a bit overwhelming if you're used to code C/C++ using a simple text editor and calling the compiler via the command line.
Decide for yourself how you want to continue with Visual Studio.
If you want to create simple C/C++ applications (consisting of only 1 or 2 source files), just create an empty project and choose "Add Item" to add a source (.c, .cpp) or include (.h) file.
If you want to evolve to more complex applications with e.g. using the MFC libraries, .Net, WPF, ... learn how to use the Visual Studio wizards. These wizards can set up a complete environment for you so you only have to fill in your business logic. Consider reading a Visual Studio 2010 tutorial to get you started.