Comments for Schwieb

Comment 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 [...]

Comment on Risks and Rewards by escorts en cordoba

escorts en cordoba — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 22:22:43 +0000

The simplest solution is usually the best solution. If Spaces doesn’t support multiple grouped windows, don’t use multiple grouped windows!!Thanks

Comment on Risks and Rewards by viviendas prefabricadas en cordoba

viviendas prefabricadas en cordoba — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 15:35:43 +0000

You want a simple fix …. just don’t combine every single palette into one global all knowing toolbox. The formatting palette should be its own palette. Everything else can be thrown into a second pallete (that no one will ever use). That way you don’t have to use multiple windows on a single toolbox.

Comment on A Brief History of Mac Office by Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 06 May 2011 17:00:39 +0000

That’s weird you are married with two kids… but what to say about the cat and the computers?… You must live in a very liberal state!

Comment on Risks and Rewards by Sandy caida del cabello

Sandy caida del cabello — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 23:38:36 +0000

I think that apple had corrected the issue in the last version, like some time ago

but i really dont remember it, someone does?

Comment on Risks and Rewards by dove hunting in argentina

dove hunting in argentina — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 18:23:23 +0000

The simplest solution is usually the best solution. If Spaces doesn’t support multiple grouped windows, don’t use multiple grouped windows!

Comment on Risks and Rewards by paisajista

paisajista — Sat, 11 Dec 2010 21:41:55 +0000

Ok, fault-finding aside, can we expect this to be fixed (or quickly fixable) in Snow Leopard? Sorry if this is an ignorant question, but this is the first good detailed discussion of this I’ve seen– it’s just a little outside of my non-engineer competence.

Comment on On being less spacey by Rick Mansfield

Rick Mansfield — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 13:36:31 +0000

Schweib,

Now with Nadyne Richmond gone from Microsoft, I think it’s up to you to keep us up with “insider” perspectives of the MacBU.

Although I realize you’re busy, I hope you’ll return to blogging soon!

Comment on Saying goodbye to Visual Basic 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 [...]

Comment on Saying goodbye to Visual Basic 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.

Comment on Risks and Rewards by Cesar Millan el encantador de perros

Cesar Millan el encantador de perros — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 04:01:22 +0000

Thanks for the explanation on the bug. I understand that this is a problem at the root of how windows are displayed in Mac OS X, and its a difficult one to solve.

The problem is that I don’t care, and neither do any of the other users of Office 2008. The fact that you have difficult software engineering problems is nothing new; all software companies have difficult software engineering problems, that’s the nature of programming. Even more so, this isn’t something you should be even discussing on a public blog. It sounds to me like you’re saying, “this is difficult, so we aren’t doing it.” Apple introduced Cocoa and Carbon almost a decade ago at this point, and even back then they had a roadmap which ended with a completely cocoa-based interface.

Microsoft has had plenty of time to work on a complete rewrite, as Adobe did a few years back. It seems that they chose not to go this route, and now they’re stuck with the bad choice of either continuing with sluggish and buggy software or committing to a multi-year rewrite process after everyone else has already adapted to the new software design. Either way, customers are unhappy and Microsoft loses out as people switch away from their software.

Comment on Risks and Rewards by Diseño Web

Diseño Web — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 13:28:30 +0000

Thanks for reaching out to me via twitter to explain my Spaces/Toolbar issues. It’s great to understand where the problem is coming from. Just something I’ll have to deal with for now.

Comment on Saying goodbye to Visual Basic 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 [...]

Comment on Saying goodbye to Visual Basic 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.

Comment on Saying goodbye to Visual Basic 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!

Comment on Saying hello (again) to Visual Basic by CB4

CB4 — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 23:02:41 +0000

I have mac 2008, and I run into the problem of not having VB a lot as I am in business school. What is the best way for me to switch to Excel 2004?

Comment on Saying hello (again) to Visual Basic by John Caulfield

John Caulfield — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 12:35:51 +0000

Ok so you can’t write VBA in 2008 but can you run a macro from 2007. The macro’s window certainly pops up like Excl 2007?

Comment on Saying goodbye to Visual Basic 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.

Comment on Saying goodbye to Visual Basic 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 [...]

Comment on Saying hello (again) to Visual Basic by Kate

Kate — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 19:44:46 +0000

Agree that sales have been good, since most people don’t know a macro from a mud hen and like me, run into the problem by accident. Other big thing driving sales, I would guess is that many, like me, chose to switch to Mac when the other choice was Vista. Not impressed to learn that I will have to buy the next iteration of Office to get functionality that every other version of the software previously in existence has. Not comforted to learn that Microsoft, given a choice between shipping “crap” now and shipping “quality” later, chose the former.

Comment on Saying hello (again) to Visual Basic by Carl

Carl — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 05:54:53 +0000

I have entirely different issues w/ Office 2008, which I got most importantly due to wanting access to .docx and .xlsx formatted documents that I sometimes receive. My issues aren’t total deal-breakers, but irritations.

I have tons of really old documents in Word 4 and Word 5 format, even a few in Word 3. Word 2008 doesn’t open them in any easy way. I can use the Open dialog, but then I have to figure out the path to to the file I was trying to open. Grungy. Or I can open ‘em in AppleWorks via MacLinkPlus to see if the file is the right one & if so, close it, & go thru the above. Also grungy. There may be a better answer, but I’ve looked & don’t know where it is. Word 4 & 5 didn’t have macros, so I don’t see why Word 2008 requires this workaround just to open a file. (Maybe it was too embarrassing to explain to people that Word 6 w/ evil macros was the problem – I never got Word 6! – & it would look bad if Word 2008 would easily open Word 5 files but not Word 6 files.)

Word ought to open files from *all* previous versions. Ditto for Excel & PowerPoint. This should be nearly seamless. A few oddities are ok – for instance, if an ancient file uses ancient bitmapped fonts, it’s ok to warn about that when opening the file. Similarly, a Word 6 file w/ macros should be easily accessible but the macros don’t have to work – in fact, they should be OFF by default, even if you include the capability.

About VBA & scripting: I never used VBA. Glad to hear it’s coming back, not so much for my own use, as because VBA is essential to Excel/Mac’s commercial future. I have simple scripts in AppleWorks, and I do some fairly light scripting in FileMaker. Haven’t done much w/ Excel 08, but one project worked *really well*, much better than in Excel 98 which had been my previous version. Remember, I don’t use VBA. PowerPoint is similarly much better in 2008 than in 98.

I intentionally use a rather old Mac & OS 10.4 so that if I have to, I can boot into OS 9. (Yes, I’m a fossil.) On that rather old Mac (933 MHz), Word 2008 is slow to open. Grrr. Microsoft went thru that before w/ Word 6; Word 98 was much improved. But something I like about my setup: I can save in my choice of .doc or .docx & test .doc files w/ Word 98 to make sure others w/ old sw can open the files.

I tried OpenOffice. I’m glad I have it handy, just in case, but I use it only when someone sends me a file that opens in it.

Comment on Saying goodbye to Visual Basic 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, [...]

Comment on Saying hello (again) to Visual Basic by toby

toby — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 20:54:17 +0000

Will macros VB really be back, and if so, when?
I created hundreds of commands using 2004 for Mac, which I use in translating repetitive texts. I upgraded to 2008 when suddenly a bug in the Macros caused them to stop working completely. I have no idea why this happened – launching macros now causes word to shut down.

I have currently my first mac (powerbook G4) running Word 2004 for Mac, and it’s functioning well. But the computer is about to croak, sadly. I will need to either purchase a new Word 2004, or wait for the new version.

Which is why I ask – when is it planned?

Much thanks!

Comment on Saying goodbye to Visual Basic 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.

Comment on Saying goodbye to Visual Basic 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.

Comment on Leave those bits alone! by Endorphinity

Endorphinity — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 20:50:08 +0000

How safe would be running “ditto –arch i386 Word.app Word_i.app” for Office apps?

Comment on Saying goodbye to Visual Basic 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. [...]

Comment on Saying hello (again) to Visual Basic by Clifford Longley

Clifford Longley — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 14:32:23 +0000

I’ve just placed an order for Mac Word 2004, having already bought Word 2008 two months ago, in order to get macros back. I had a whole suite of macros for my MS Word X, but for some reason that application will not run on the new (post October 2009) iMacs. This is not the fault of Snow Leopard by the way, as Word X (plus macros!) works perfectly on my Intel MacBook with OS 10.6.2.
I am a journalist, editor and book author, and my needs may be slightly different from some of your other respondents, which is why I am writing this. I found macros invaluable for editing, or for tidying up imperfect text either due to my own bad typing or someone else’s. I had one f-key to trigger a macro which would swap a character with the one to its right (a macro I called “transpose”) as this is one of the most common mistpyings (see what I mean!); I had one f-key to delete the whole word under the cursor wherever it may be, one f-key to translate Roman text instantly into italics, one to insert page numbers into a document, one that would make the first letter of a word Upper Case (and another key for vice versa), an f-key for spell check (less necessary but I used it all the time); one to change fonts from Courier to Times Roman or back — and so on. The joy of macros was that you worked out the sequence of things you wanted to do to the text, eg select a letter, “cut” it, move one space forward, paste letter into text – and then just repeated it with the record macro command on, having designated a function key, then saved it. Apple script just will not allow that. I am so frustrated by the lack of macros with 2008 that I am prepared to fork out for the older version, 2004, where macros still work, thank God. If I had the money to sue Microsoft I would, I’m so cross!

Comment on Saying goodbye to Visual Basic 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.

Comment on Saying hello (again) to Visual Basic by Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 08:28:57 +0000

PIVOT TABLES in Excel should be identical to those of Windows. Having to drag fields onto the sheet to see the affect does not work near as well as dragging them to the ‘input’ boxes that Windows uses.

Also, this situation begs the question “Why don’t you put the Office 2004 VBA into a service pack for those of us who bought 2008 and had to ‘downgrade’???