Easy Office application development
Bruce Maples
Published: 05 Nov 2002 12:23 GMT
Even if you aren't a professional code jockey, this version of Office may be something you'll want to consider. In fact, there's one feature, the Code Librarian, that I think may justify the purchase of MOD on its merits alone. Read on and see what you think.
All features great and small
Before we look at some of the neat features in MOD, let's clear up one thing it doesn't have -- a newer or better version of Office proper. The releases of the Office applications themselves are the same as those you get with Office Premium.
On the development side, though, you get a slew of features, tools, and add-ins. Some are small and/or obscure; others you'll use every day. For the record, here is a list of all the MOD features, although I won't cover all of them here.
Let's get professional
I'm always appreciative of the IT professional who takes the time to insert a comment block at the top of a procedure documenting the purpose, editing date, variables, and history of the procedure. With MOD, though, it's so easy to insert such a block that I'll have to stop being impressed. By simply clicking the Code Commenter on the Add-Ins menu in the VBA Editor, you get the dialog box shown in Figure A.
| Figure A |
 |
You can add comments to the current procedure, to all the procedures in the current module, or to all procedures in the current project. The comments are based on a simple text template, which you can edit (more on this in a moment). If you want, you can browse to a new template or take a look at the current template before you use it.
When you click OK, the Code Commenter inserts a comment block that looks something like this:
' Code Header inserted by the Procedure Header Add-In'
=============================================
' ThisDocument.junk'
---------------------------------------------
' Purpose
' Author : Bruce Maples, 08-17-2002
' Notes :
'---------------------------------------------
' Parameters
'-----------
'
'---------------------------------------------
' Returns:
'---------------------------------------------
' Revision History
'---------------------------------------------
' 08-17-2002 WBM:
'=============================================
' End Code Header block
Once the block is in place, it's up to you to fill in the blanks for Purpose, Notes, and Revision History.
If you click Show Template, you'll get a view window where you can examine the current template (Figure B). To modify the template to include the comments and fields you want in your projects, open it in Notepad and change it as you see fit.
| Figure B |
 |
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