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#1
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Which Excel Version Best for Creating New Applications or Add-ins?
I am creating a new Excel-based program (see www.PKTutor.com for a
preliminary demo). Given the plethora of Excel vesrions out there, I am interested to know which version is regarded as best for modern development of commercial products. Backward compatibility seems pretty good with v.11 and v.12. Since this will be an international educational and tutorial-type interactive program, I need good compatibility all the way back to Excel 97 and into the future. Also, I won't need to use XML. I can develop or test on almost any XL version from Excel 97 onwards. Your comments (pros and cons) will be greatly appreciated. For an example of my current Excel product for medical/pharmaceutical/pharmacy data analysis (available in Excel 97 and XP), see www.SummitPK.com Much thanks in advance. |
#2
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Which Excel Version Best for Creating New Applications or Add-ins?
On Apr 17, 8:23 pm, SummitXLer wrote:
I am creating a new Excel-based program (seewww.PKTutor.comfor a preliminary demo). Given the plethora of Excel vesrions out there, I am interested to know which version is regarded as best for modern development of commercial products. Backward compatibility seems pretty good with v.11 and v.12. Since this will be an international educational and tutorial-type interactive program, I need good compatibility all the way back to Excel 97 and into the future. Also, I won't need to use XML. I can develop or test on almost any XL version from Excel 97 onwards. Your comments (pros and cons) will be greatly appreciated. For an example of my current Excel product for medical/pharmaceutical/pharmacy data analysis (available in Excel 97 and XP), seewww.SummitPK.com Much thanks in advance. NONE....unless you don't care about your code being stolen. Listen-up: I've been in communication with Michael Worosz ] who was supposed to be the product manager of Excel 2007, but (for some strange reason), no longer is....and he won't provide the name of the new Excel 2007 product manager....telling. I told him about the need for XLA add-in security that is hacker-proof. He indicated this was a "new feature". YEAH, right ! Microsoft is not beefing-up XLA/Add-in code security for Excel 2007 on purpose. They are (again, they love to push people around !) pushing developers to go the VSTO which is "secure". http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/to...BuildingUI.htm Of course, it will cost you about 2-3 years time and a couple of thousand dollars of books and training before you can build apps at the same speed as VBA. Good luck ! |
#3
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Which Excel Version Best for Creating New Applications or Add-ins?
Use VB6 if you think XLA security is a problem.
Charles ______________________ Decision Models FastExcel 2.3 now available Name Manager 4.0 now available www.DecisionModels.com "syswizard" wrote in message oups.com... On Apr 17, 8:23 pm, SummitXLer wrote: I am creating a new Excel-based program (seewww.PKTutor.comfor a preliminary demo). Given the plethora of Excel vesrions out there, I am interested to know which version is regarded as best for modern development of commercial products. Backward compatibility seems pretty good with v.11 and v.12. Since this will be an international educational and tutorial-type interactive program, I need good compatibility all the way back to Excel 97 and into the future. Also, I won't need to use XML. I can develop or test on almost any XL version from Excel 97 onwards. Your comments (pros and cons) will be greatly appreciated. For an example of my current Excel product for medical/pharmaceutical/pharmacy data analysis (available in Excel 97 and XP), seewww.SummitPK.com Much thanks in advance. NONE....unless you don't care about your code being stolen. Listen-up: I've been in communication with Michael Worosz ] who was supposed to be the product manager of Excel 2007, but (for some strange reason), no longer is....and he won't provide the name of the new Excel 2007 product manager....telling. I told him about the need for XLA add-in security that is hacker-proof. He indicated this was a "new feature". YEAH, right ! Microsoft is not beefing-up XLA/Add-in code security for Excel 2007 on purpose. They are (again, they love to push people around !) pushing developers to go the VSTO which is "secure". http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/to...BuildingUI.htm Of course, it will cost you about 2-3 years time and a couple of thousand dollars of books and training before you can build apps at the same speed as VBA. Good luck ! |
#4
Posted to microsoft.public.excel.programming
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Which Excel Version Best for Creating New Applications or Add-ins?
It's normally recommended to develop in the oldest version you want your app
to be compatible with, so for you that implies Excel 97, though you would also want to test, and possibly adapt, in later versions. VBA6 was introduced in XL2000 which includes several new vba functions that help speed things up and avoid workarounds, you might want to do something like this - #If VBA6 then s = Replace(etc) #Else s = application.worksheetfunction.Substitute(etc) #End If Each successive Excel version includes new functions and/or functions with additional optional arguments. If you want to take advantage of these you will need to cater for app.version, putting later version stuff in procedures (ideally in dedicated modules) that will never be called by earlier versions. There are a few particular issues with vba in XL97 that were resolved in later versions, relatively not too many. Head all you modules with Option Explicit and fully declare all object variables. Do a debug compile in each version and go on to fully test in each. It might be worth making a separate version for XL2007. There have been many posts in this ng highlighting differences and problems to overcome with certain aspects. If you want to secure your code, as mentioned security is minimal in VBA, consider a VB6 dll as suggested by Charles Williams. If this is to use Early Binding, ensure the reference is set to the earliest version. The same dll could be a Com Addin for XL2000+ and an ordinary ActiveX for use in XL97 with a VBA wrapper. Or, if your app is a full program that uses Excel, perhaps a VB6 exe. Regards, Peter T "SummitXLer" wrote in message oups.com... I am creating a new Excel-based program (see www.PKTutor.com for a preliminary demo). Given the plethora of Excel vesrions out there, I am interested to know which version is regarded as best for modern development of commercial products. Backward compatibility seems pretty good with v.11 and v.12. Since this will be an international educational and tutorial-type interactive program, I need good compatibility all the way back to Excel 97 and into the future. Also, I won't need to use XML. I can develop or test on almost any XL version from Excel 97 onwards. Your comments (pros and cons) will be greatly appreciated. For an example of my current Excel product for medical/pharmaceutical/pharmacy data analysis (available in Excel 97 and XP), see www.SummitPK.com Much thanks in advance. |
#5
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Which Excel Version Best for Creating New Applications or Add-ins?
On Apr 18, 4:23 am, "Peter T" <peter_t@discussions wrote:
It's normally recommended to develop in the oldest version you want your app to be compatible with, so for you that impliesExcel97, though you would also want to test, and possibly adapt, in later versions. VBA6 was introduced in XL2000 which includes several new vba functions that help speed things up and avoid workarounds, you might want to do something like this - #If VBA6 then s = Replace(etc) #Else s = application.worksheetfunction.Substitute(etc) #End If Each successiveExcelversion includes new functions and/or functions with additional optional arguments. If you want to take advantage of these you will need to cater for app.version, putting later version stuff in procedures (ideally in dedicated modules) that will never be called by earlier versions. There are a few particular issues with vba in XL97 that were resolved in later versions, relatively not too many. Head all you modules with Option Explicit and fully declare all object variables. Do a debug compile in each version and go on to fully test in each. It might be worth making a separate version for XL2007. There have been many posts in this ng highlighting differences and problems to overcome with certain aspects. If you want tosecureyour code, as mentioned security is minimal in VBA, consider a VB6 dll as suggested by Charles Williams. If this is to use Early Binding, ensure the reference is set to the earliest version. The same dll could be a Com Addin for XL2000+ and an ordinary ActiveX for use in XL97 with a VBA wrapper. Or, if your app is a full program that usesExcel, perhaps a VB6 exe. Regards, Peter T Good solutions all, but this is not the best moving forward. You'll eventually have to embrace .NET and VSTO/Interop...it's just inevitable. If MSFT was still supporting VB6 and COM (like they EASILY COULD HAVE), the above would be the best option. |
#6
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Which Excel Version Best for Creating New Applications or Add-ins?
On Apr 17, 7:05 pm, syswizard wrote:
NONE....unless you don't care about your code being stolen. Listen-up: I've been in communication with Michael Worosz ] who was supposed to be the product manager of Excel 2007, but (for some strange reason), no longer is....and he won't provide the name of the new Excel 2007 product manager....telling. I told him about the need for XLA add-in security that is hacker-proof. He indicated this was a "new feature". YEAH,vance. Thanks. I know Excel security is weak - always has been. And piracy is plentiful with any Office app. But let me narrow my inquiry. Say, between Excel 2003 and 2007, which would be the preferred version for development of a new commercial app? Considerations would be backward and forward compatability for world-wide distribution, VBE development environment and protection, code stability, deployment issues, and the like. I'm not concerned about ribbons and sharing, but about stability, longevity, compatability, usability....and such. |
#7
Posted to microsoft.public.excel.programming
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Which Excel Version Best for Creating New Applications or Add-ins?
Good solutions all, but this is not the best moving forward. You'll
eventually have to embrace .NET and VSTO/Interop...it's just inevitable. If MSFT was still supporting VB6 and COM (like they EASILY COULD HAVE), the above would be the best option. The VB6 suggestion was thrown in, the OP didn't even mention security (though he has since). However he did mention he wants to support early versions. .Net won't work in W2k without the gigantic Framework, bit of an overkill for an addin. But to your point, how long VB6 will survive is anyone's guess but, as it works in Vista, presumably it will until the next generation of Windows at least. I was rather surprised to learn recently that MS still sell VB6 via MSDN Subscriber Downloads, though not VS. FWIW there is also speculation as to how long .Net will survive. Regards, Peter T |
#8
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Which Excel Version Best for Creating New Applications or Add-ins?
a VBA solution will be supported by MSOffice for many years to come: even
XLM is still supported in Excel 2007 and that was obsoleted by VBA many years ago (1993) in Excel 5 . I dont see the point in trying to develop an Excel addin for .net and VSTO until they are properly supported and functional under Office: I believe VSTO is currently targeted at a different marketplace. Proper .net/VSTA support may or may not happen in the next office version (14) but I have not heard any public Msoft announcements to that effect: it would require a major development effort by MSoft that might not be cost-effective for them. On the other hand I believe there is a public statement that VBA will be supported in the next Office version. If you want a solution that supports Excel 97 through Excel version 14 I personally dont see much choice at the moment other than VBA or VB6 or a C++ XLL. If your marketplace is large corporates then you can probably drop Excel 97, but I don't think that would make much difference. Good solutions all, but this is not the best moving forward. You'll eventually have to embrace .NET and VSTO/Interop...it's just inevitable. If MSFT was still supporting VB6 and COM (like they EASILY COULD HAVE), the above would be the best option. Charles ______________________ Decision Models FastExcel 2.3 now available Name Manager 4.0 now available www.DecisionModels.com |
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