Testers Wanted-Feel good about yourself and volunteer today!

[dk]

Hello everyone and Happy New Year! Here in Oz the party is long over and we have the hangovers to prove it

Anyway, I've written an add-in for Excel that I'd like to get some feedback and testing on. I've written it using Excel 2003 but would like to get it tested on as many different versions as possible.

The add-in allows you to maintain a Favourites list in Excel, much like the Favorites in Internet Explorer. You can save favourite folders and files and quickly access them by either clicking File, Favourites or right-clicking in a worksheet and choosing the Favourites menu item. I wrote this for work as I was fed up with constantly navigating from something like G:\004Accounting\Transport\Tran_acc\XLFILES\Planning and Budgeting\Elle\Northern Region and back to H:\Development\Elle and then off somewhere else.

I know some of you may be thinking that Excel already provides this functionality with the Add to Favorites option in the Open dialog box but it seems to have disappeared in Office 2003 (haven't fully investigated). Also, I prefer to keep my favourites as websites, not clog it up with file favourites.

Anyway, you can download the file from here. Any feedback can be posted here or sent to dan@danielklann.com.

This is not a commercial project, just something that I'd like to get tested. Hopefully some of you may find it useful.

Thanks,
Dan

 

[dk]

Re: Testers Wanted-Feel good about yourself and volunteer to

Cheers Ivan. I've changed it to faceID 33, which I hope should be the same on all versions. I've also updated the version on my website.

 

[XL-Dennis]

Re: Testers Wanted-Feel good about yourself and volunteer to

Hi Dan,

I´ve download the revised version and will check it on my swedish plattform

However, I just want to point out that Your comment about the number of version I´m running is due to my clients demand and not a choice of my own. The client-demand has also pushed me to buy the full MSDN subscription which cost a fortune on a yearly basis

However I´m a happy person because I´m rich in feelings but not in $$$.

Will let You know about my findings.

Dennis

 

[Ivan F Moala]

Re: Testers Wanted-Feel good about yourself and volunteer to

Hi Dan,

I´ve download the revised version and will check it on my swedish plattform

However, I just want to point out that Your comment about the number of version I´m running is due to my clients demand and not a choice of my own. The client-demand has also pushed me to buy the full MSDN subscription which cost a fortune on a yearly basis

However I´m a happy person because I´m rich in feelings but not in $$$.

Will let You know about my findings.

Dennis

Yes, I agree....that's why I run 97 and will probably get the Next 2 versions
ie Xp and 2003. And run on diff OS. Currently running XP, Win98 , XP Pro
Win2000.

 

[DonkeyOte]

Re: Testers Wanted-Feel good about yourself and volunteer to

Just downloaded this Dan, very cool - have distributed this to some of my more compotent colleagues for their feed back also.

Nice.

 

[dk]

Re: Testers Wanted-Feel good about yourself and volunteer to

Hi Dan,

I´ve download the revised version and will check it on my swedish plattform

However, I just want to point out that Your comment about the number of version I´m running is due to my clients demand and not a choice of my own. The client-demand has also pushed me to buy the full MSDN subscription which cost a fortune on a yearly basis

However I´m a happy person because I´m rich in feelings but not in $$$.

Will let You know about my findings.

Dennis

G'day Dennis/Ivan and a happy new year!

My comment was just a little joke and I hope you took it that way . I totally agree that testing on the oldest version is an essential thing to do. I've just built myself a new PC and I'm still trying to get everything to work as I want and I've only put the minimal amount of software on it.

I actually looked for a copy of Office 97 today and found one on Ebay for $100AUD (quite a bargain- this is something that I may well consider buying very soon if it's going to help me build more compatible software.

Thanks for your feedback lads,
Dan

 

[DonkeyOte]

Re: Testers Wanted-Feel good about yourself and volunteer to

My only thing is that I didn't like the default position on the file menu bar - so I moved it (below) - will this have any effect anywhere else? Is this something you can add - ie allow the user to specify the position of the Favourites sub menu on the main menu by allowing them to amend the control below? Is 1 default so regardless of how many sub menus there are on the main popup menu the code will never fall over?

Set ComPop = Application.CommandBars("File").Controls.Add(Type:=msoControlPopup, before:=4)

 

[dk]

Re: Testers Wanted-Feel good about yourself and volunteer to

My only thing is that I didn't like the default position on the file menu bar - so I moved it (below) - will this have any effect anywhere else? Is this something you can add - ie allow the user to specify the position of the Favourites sub menu on the main menu by allowing them to amend the control below? Is 1 default so regardless of how many sub menus there are on the main popup menu the code will never fall over?

Set ComPop = Application.CommandBars("File").Controls.Add(Type:=msoControlPopup, before:=4)

Changing the position is cool - it won't have an effect anywhere else.

I guess the easiest thing to do to solve this would be to include an Options dialog where the user could choose various settings, as there are other things I think people would like to customise. Personally, I didn't even have the button on the File menu when I first set this up. I only added it so that if there were no workbooks open the add-in could still be used. The only thing I'm trying to avoid is making the add-in too large or complex, although I doubt an extra userform will add much.

CHEERS MATE!

Dan

 

[Ekim]

Re: Testers Wanted-Feel good about yourself and volunteer to

Dan,

Good stuff. I like the idea of having Favourites on the right click pop-up menu ( I didn’t realize this at first). There is really no need for a menu item under File.

I am already finding that the add-in is very handy.

Regards,

Mike

 

[XL-Dennis]

Re: Testers Wanted-Feel good about yourself and volunteer to

Dan,

My comment was just a little joke and I hope you took it that way

Yes :wink:
But it also reminded me about the $$$ I need to spend on softwares and believe or not I have 97 - 2003 both swedish and english versions...

Anyway, the add-in is indeed a time-saving tool and makes the XL-life more easier to live with

All the best
Dennis

 

[Ken Puls]

Re: Testers Wanted-Feel good about yourself and volunteer to

Hi Dan,

I can't remember what face ID 33 was in office XP (win XP o/s) when I was playing with it yesterday. In 2003 though, the icon is a clock... is that the one you were after?

Just to let you know, if there is an '&' in the filename that you add to the menu, it doesn't display it as such. I have a file "Safe & Float Reconciliations" (showed up as Safe _Float Reconciliations" Workaround is to add another & right after the first one, and it fixs the problem.

Having the favourites on the right click menu is great, too! I actually didn't notice it there, as I found it in the file menu first.

2003 (win XP o/s) has the same issues re folder shortcuts that Wil had pointed out earlier in the post.

You'd mentioned earlier that you thought about putting in a checkbox with a "don't bother me with this message again" message when clicking the delete button. My personal feelings is that this would be a nice thing. I'm not personally a big fan of having to confirm my every action when I ask to do something. (How many times have you walked across the office to your printer and waited there, only to realise that you never hit the "yes I really did want to print that" button

I've got to say, that this is a great add-in. It's going to save me a ton of navigating time over the next 3 days, as I have a year end to do, and about 50 files to access!

Cheers!