Clearing initial cell comment data.

[bowlesj]

Hi,

Is there a way to stop excel 2007 from putting my user name or anything in the popup box that appears when a cell comment is first created. The best I have found so far is changing the user name in excel options from my name to a question mark so I need only hit the backspace 3 times (Carriage return, colon and question-mark). That is a significant improvement but my curiosity stays with me. I double checked the options where I changed from my name to ? and there is no (include in new comments) checkbox to uncheck for this never used feature.

Thanks,
John

 

[rlv01]

I recall that it fills that box from the Windows environment variable USERNAME, e.g. USERNAME=JohnSmith. You could try playing around with that, assuming you don't need it to be something specific.

 

[bowlesj]

Hi rlc01, I don't actually know how to adjust the Windows environment variable. I have a feeling I might get into issues with changing it while home networking across 3 machines. Login issues. I am sure there is a way to get around all this but its not really worth the risk and work for me.

But I change my name to "?" and it still adds a colon and a carriage return as part of the comment creation process. If I blank it out rather than using a ? it puts my windows username in again (as you say) plus of course the colon and carriage return. So I am guessing there is no solution.

It seems rather strange to think that anyone would think that any user would want user name in a cell comment. I think most users know their name...lol. If they forget their name they probably will not be capable of using Excel. But alas. I too have had veg out days as a programmer myself. The mind gets tired...lol. Sleep helps It seems to be to be an issue where users put up with it and programmers are too over worked to fix it so it got into the final release with no fix.

 

[rlv01]

If you want to change the environment variable, it is not hard, and there is plenty of help to be found using google so I don't think not knowing how is much of an obstacle as it is something easily learned. The reason MS adds a user name is because it aligns with their desire to have excel used in a teams environment.

Honestly though, I don't find it to be the same burden you do, since to me it is the work of an instant to select and delete my name when creating a new comment.

 

[bowlesj]

If you want to change the environment variable, it is not hard, and there is plenty of help to be found using google so I don't think not knowing how is much of an obstacle as it is something easily learned. The reason MS adds a user name is because it aligns with their desire to have excel used in a teams environment.

Honestly though, I don't find it to be the same burden you do, since to me it is the work of an instant to select and delete my name when creating a new comment.

Thanks rlv01, You were correct. I was able to find and change the username quickly. However I decided to leave it as is with my full name because this is an excel issue and I probably want my full name elsewhere.

So I was in the past just pressing backspace and holding it. This is quite slow. After doing this probably 1,000+ times while never wanting my name in there I finally decided to break my habit and find a solution. I am not sure which solution is easier (#1 - Making the change I made of having only "?" appear and hitting backspace 3 times) or (#2 - pressing Ctrl+Shift+Home then Delete). Either way I am a fuss buss programmer and when I have control I fix it properly. If properly means satisfying two different repeat uses that eventually adds of to 10 minutes of wasted time I create a way to fix it so zero time is wasted. In this case I am betting the programming solution would take 20 minutes. When you take my faster solutions which probably takes 1 or 2 seconds. and multiply it by 1000 comments per user times millions of users that is a lot of wasted time. The programming trick here is to have the way to change the default starting comment right in the create comment popup so users instantly know what to do without needing to go searching for a way in the help system. Once the default is set they are done. Of course the actual popup of the comment during mouse hover would not show this option but just show the actual comment.

Anyway thinks again for your time rlv01. I might use option #2 in the end . That was your helpful idea.

John

 

[rlv01]

I right mouse click, create the comment, use my mouse to swipe left and select, then use my left hand to delete the text with a backspace. Takes less than a second. It barely even registers in my conciousness at this point.

If I need to do this in bulk, I also have a macro in my personal macro workbooks to remove my name from all comments on the activesheet and set the font to my liking.

 

[bowlesj]

I right mouse click, create the comment, use my mouse to swipe left and select, then use my left hand to delete the text with a backspace. Takes less than a second. It barely even registers in my conciousness at this point.

If I need to do this in bulk, I also have a macro in my personal macro workbooks to remove my name from all comments on the activesheet and set the font to my liking.

Thanks rlv01,

its good to know the types of things that can be done in excel. I am a much better MS-access programmer and just barely starting to do some slightly more advanced excel programming with loops etc. Two days ago I wrote a little VBA routine with (Sendkeys and AppActivate with a 1 second pause between commands to make it work) which was a real time saver. It controlled both Excel and Google Chrome. I have been doing this type of stuff in MS-Access since 1999 and only for the first time tried AppActivate in Excel. Always fun.

John.

 

[rlv01]

I did an Access application back in 2010. Not much since then. Excel VBA language is basically the same as Access. The main challenge is learning the different object model.

 

[bowlesj]

I did an Access application back in 2010. Not much since then. Excel VBA language is basically the same as Access. The main challenge is learning the different object model.

Yes, agreed.

I taught myself to program for the web using JavaScript, php & mysql.
A high percentage of this learning was by using google searches where I often found code examples where I took a full command and removed the situation specific part of the code. As an example:
This command
ThisWorkbook.Sheets("Sheet1").Cells(intCurrentRow, 1).Activate
would become this google search.
excel ThisWorkbook.Sheets("").Cells(,).Activate
I might replace activate with background or whatever and almost always great examples appeared.
Using these types of searches I tried my best to avoid having to ask on forums but on occasion I was forced to.
I often called this learning "Just in time learning". A completely different approach to when I learned Unix Shell scripting using Sed, Awk, Bash and KSH.