Comments on: Saying goodbye to Visual Basic

By: MacTech to publish “VBA to AppleScript” guide for Office developers | Ars Technica

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 07:15:48 +0000

[...] at least on the PC side. In a detailed post on his personal weblog, MacBU developer Erik Schwiebert pointed out that although the decision was not an easy one at MS, it was necessary to allow them to move ahead [...]

By: » Review: Mac Office 2001 R4 Maintenance Upgrade (Also Called Office 2011)

» Review: Mac Office 2001 R4 Maintenance Upgrade (Also Called Office 2011) — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 07:28:04 +0000

[...] horrible bug that appeared in R3 (sometimes called Office 2008) where Macros/Visual Basic would refuse to load and Macros would be stripped out of files is now [...]

By: Erwin

Erwin — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 15:09:05 +0000

It`s all about money, protection and competition, on the back of customers that are made believe that updating is a thing you must do to keep in business.

By: The Professor's Notes » Blog Archive » Improved Kindle Clippings Macro for Word

Sat, 16 Oct 2010 15:39:09 +0000

[...] MAC Users–apparently Microsoft removed VBA from their Word for MAC (read excruciating details here.) Thus, the only way to use this macro is to run Windows on your Mac, with the Windows version of [...]

By: Scott

Scott — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 04:11:41 +0000

I just installed Office 2008-upgrading from Office X. Unbelievable. I actually think that it is more difficult to take an otherwise useful program and make it completely worthless with an update than it is to make improvements. I can only guess that the team at Microsoft worked day and night to ensure that all cross-platform functionality in Excel was taken away. And I must commend the fact that it was so subtly done- I had no idea that VBA was not supported in this ‘update’. I don’t typically think to search on the web to be sure that an update is going to render my software useless. The first file I tried to open was toast. I actually try to use excel as a tool to get things done at work. I know, I know, all my colleagues say that that excel shouldn’t be used for real analytical work, but VBA made it possible- now Microsoft has proven them right with this update. Another great thing about this, that is so completely sinister, is that it is only the files that most likely took you the most time to make, and that are the most useful as tools that are now completely worthless. What next? I wish I could put into words just how incredibly epic this failure is, after reading this post I can see I can’t. You should all be ashamed of yourselves.

By: G. Hammond

G. Hammond — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 01:04:37 +0000

I was a first tester of Excel 1.0 and I beta tested till 1993. I met some of the guys who wrote the formulas for excel. I actually prefer the old macro language and not vba. With add-ons I could make excel jump through hoops. SQL data-dipping was one of my favorites. You can’t tell me that providing the old macro language would be a big deal? Or providing an API and/or apple script-able commands to give me a fighting chance at providing a decent product to clients. Do MS executives look for ways to make Mac Users suffer or does it come naturally? I will of course have to use the PC version and run it in a Virtual environment, I just wish MS would do the right thing and stop selling a broken product!

By: Sonam Yadav

Sonam Yadav — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 06:40:52 +0000

Thanx, for your help. Actualy I have a excel with specific template. The excel file have a macro written in VBA attached with it. Whenever another user downloads that file that macro is executed. I want to write that same macro in applescript and attach it to excel as excel 2008 don’t have support for VB macro. Is there any way to execute macro written in applescript through excel 2008, so whenever another user download this excel file that macro written in applescript should be executed automatically and provides same functionality as macro in VBA. Please help me with this problem.

Thanx again.

By: Mackenab.com » Blog Archive » A Microsoft-less World?

Mackenab.com » Blog Archive » A Microsoft-less World? — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 03:48:43 +0000

[...] just found this post explaining in some detail why the Microsoft Mac Business Unit (MacBU) is dropping VBA support. It [...]

By: Plymouth Design Group » Blog Archive » Macros For Macintosh Excel 2008 using XLM

Tue, 08 Jun 2010 17:29:10 +0000

[...] You’ll find that VBA doesn’t work at all under Excel 2008 for Mac, because Microsoft decided to remove it. They are pushing users toward AppleScript as an alternative scripting technology, [...]

By: Eric Pettigrew

Eric Pettigrew — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 06:18:21 +0000

It would take you two years to rewrite the code? So what? It took me five years to acquire the knowledge to write applications which talked to each other in Office across Access, Excel, and Outlook, all of which use VBA.

And no one was paying me out of some corporate budget. I came to Macs late in life, but if I could, would drop the various PCs I have just because the Mac is a beautiful machine.

The arrogance of Microsoft, with its screw the customer attitude is mind-boggling. (you once tried to charge me £230 just to ask a question when I found a bug in Access which then you credited after you admitted it was your fault). This is just another brick in the Microsoft stonewall built with complete disregard of your customers and the work they put in to adapt your undoubtedly great parts of the package (Pivot Tables for instance) to good use.

A plague on your house.

By: John C.

John C. — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 16:57:40 +0000

I’ve read this explanation twice now, and basically it boils down to “I couldn’t be bothered”. Pathetic. You have removed basic functionality from a program and claim that this is an improvement I should be grateful for? Why not remove the ability to create plots, that would actually be much less destructive for many many users than what you have actually done. I have a huge number of alternatives, better alternatives, if I want to create pretty plots and pro-quality spreadsheet graphics. I have no alternative program to run all my macros (which include some incredibly complex and powerful data processing plugins). Doesn’t it make you feel sick knowing that you have spent years creating a useless program? Doesn’t it crush pride to know that you have wasted years of your life? You say that most macros are portable to AppleScript, but that only goes to show just how little you appear to understand about the way that many people use macros, and just how many highly complex macros are in daily use by a huge number of people around the world. What you have now is just a substandard finance-only spreadsheet program, and you have killed Excel as a serious piece of scientific software. So it would have been some work for you. Diddums. That’s what you are paid for. Have you any comprehension of just how much money your decision has cost users around the world, how much time, how much stress? So your manager was close to crying, awww… I have actually SEEN users cry when they realise just how crap Excel 2008 is. The chart wizard is fucked. The macros are fucked sideways. And you claim it is improved? Moron.

By: Mac Office 2008 Hits Private Beta « MacRumors.com

Mac Office 2008 Hits Private Beta « MacRumors.com — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 14:39:58 +0000

[...] Microsoft has stated that Office 2008 will be a Universal Binary, and will bring compatibility with Office 2007 for Windows’ Open XML file format. To the dismay of many corporate and cross-platform users, however, Microsoft has said that it will not be supporting Visual Basic scripting. [...]

By: moe.

moe. — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 14:19:42 +0000

sorry, dann leider kein update. wäre längst geschehen. dann kann man auch numbers verwenden.

By: The worm in the apple

The worm in the apple — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 02:03:50 +0000

[...] December 2006 Update: My attention has been drawn to an earlier post from a lead in Microsoft’s Mac Business Unit, where the removal of support for Visual Basic [...]

By: Daniela

Daniela — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 16:11:48 +0000

Do you have any other solution for us mac users? What our we supposed to tell our clients? Sorry it’s just not possible?!

By: erik dörnenburg » Articles » How toxic is your code?

erik dörnenburg » Articles » How toxic is your code? — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 02:36:13 +0000

[...] time. So, naturally, I’d like to use Excel on the Mac but, alas, in its current version it does not support VBA anymore. So, unfortunately, it’s VMWare Fusion for this [...]

By: matti

matti — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 08:20:16 +0000

if you wrote a serious office vba app on the mac you are nuts anyway and deserve what you got.

By: Office 2008 starts very slow - Page 4 | keyongtech

Office 2008 starts very slow - Page 4 | keyongtech — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 16:29:40 +0000

[...] Re: Office 2008 starts very slow Matthew Gardiner wrote: > I’m confused as to why they removed > VBA when they had no multiplatform alternative in the pipe line. > May help with the confusion, if not the difficulties– http://www.schwieb.com/blog/2006/08/…-visual-basic/ [...]

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 18:37:35 +0000

Why couldn’t you make a Visual Basic to Applescript converter. Mac Office could open a document with embeded visual basic macros, convert the script to applescript, run it through the mac interface that they decided to implement instead, and you’d see little loss of functionality. For compatibility, the converter would work in reverse as well. Applescript macros written in Mac Office could be saved to Visual Basic macro format so that windows office could open it and still run the macros. Wouldn’t that be a far easier implementation than spending 2 years straight completely rewriting it? As long as the macros still work and are compatible, I doubt anyone would care that it’s not running on VBA.

By: ChrisJ

ChrisJ — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 16:40:20 +0000

Yeah.. It would be interesting to see if there was a follow up to this. I bet not.

This does sound like a really feasible solution indeed.

what about LLVM anybody at MacBU?? or use an OSA component, with VBA as its language of course.

By: mac.by.jake

mac.by.jake — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 06:07:32 +0000

Was there any follow up to this. I have no idea what your saying here but it seems if you found a possible solution that someone should say whether this is feasible or not?

By: kampery

kampery — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 15:17:34 +0000

Seems people are under the impression Microsoft is somehow obligated to do a “proper” full version of Office.

Thats just not true. They almost certainly could make more money using the MacBU developers for other jobs, they just keep it going for goodwill and to be seen as playing nicely with competitors.

Plenty of platforms have seen major applications just dropped because they are too expensive. For example Lotus Notes only supports Windows for a client now despite thousands of businesses using it on other platforms. It could EASILY happen to Mac Office.

By: Mike

Mike — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 07:52:49 +0000

You’re joking right? You don’t know anything about your only real competitor Open Office? If that’s true then you’re incompetent. If it is not then you’re a liar.

You’re definitely lying about it ‘not supporting the newer xml formats’. It already supports the only ISO standard XML format – ODF.

By: Jay

Jay — Thu, 29 May 2008 04:37:03 +0000

Apple can get PowerPC code to run seamlessly on Intel chips

By: Project Finance Modelling Consultant

Project Finance Modelling Consultant — Wed, 14 May 2008 12:35:53 +0000

It’s a shame that there are still such big differences between Office for Mac an d Windows. I work in the banking sector, and would love to see Macs being more frequent! Currenlty, to run a Mac while working in banking you would need a spare Windows machine as a backup for unknown problems.

By: Michael Tsai - Blog - Saying Hello (Again) to Visual Basic

Michael Tsai - Blog - Saying Hello (Again) to Visual Basic — Tue, 13 May 2008 18:25:04 +0000

[...] in August 2006, the MacBU announced that Office 2008 would not have support for Visual Basic. I blogged about it at the time, and that one post has proven to be my 15 minutes of Internet fame. It continues to be [...]

By: Python the new VBA ? « Gobán Saor

Python the new VBA ? « Gobán Saor — Sun, 04 May 2008 22:19:36 +0000

[...] Excel VBA is now a Windows only language. Windows, however, is no longer the ‘only’ business client OS (see how many Apple [...]

By: MacMacken » AppleScript statt Visual Basic for Applications :(

MacMacken » AppleScript statt Visual Basic for Applications :( — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 03:11:50 +0000

[...] gegenüber der aktuellen Microsoft Excel 2007-Version für den PC. Anscheinend hätte die Integration von VBA in Microsoft Office 2008 das Erscheinen um weitere zwei Jahre ver…, nachdem bereits das nun verfügbare Ergebnis von vier Jahren Entwicklungszeit [...]

By: NT

NT — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 21:22:14 +0000

Actually, there is no need to build the equivalent of a compiler into Office for Mac in order to deal with VBA macros. Nor is there any need to implement a translator.

Solution:

1. Remove the PPC byte-code compiler/linker completely and discard

2. Create a simple byte-code to C translator, which emits each macro as a C function. Don’t worry about generating efficient C, the compiler (step 3) will take care of that.

3. Compile the macro(s) using your favorite (external) C compiler.
e.g. system(“gcc -O3 …”);

4. Dynamically link the compiled macro(s) to the Office executable.
e.g. dlopen(…);

5. Find macro function entry points and save in a suitable data structure.

6. Call the compiled VBA macro functions as necessary.

7. If feeling adventurous, embed the compiled object(s) in the Office document that contains the macros so that compilation is a one-time effort.

How hard is this? Worried about the cost of calling a compiler? It’s faster than you might think, and better than losing compatibility and all those paying customers. And if you need a hand – I’ve done this before.

By: Aaron

Aaron — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 15:15:59 +0000

Seems people are under the impression Microsoft is somehow obligated to do a “proper” full version of Office.

Thats just not true. They almost certainly could make more money using the MacBU developers for other jobs, they just keep it going for goodwill and to be seen as playing nicely with competitors.