yang686526

confusion over vba vs. visual basic.net
i am about to delve into some vb programming for sw. several years ago, i did some vba for autocad, so i am not new to this, but needed some refreshing on it.
i just purchased the book by mike spens; "automating solidworks 2009 using macros".
he says in his introduction that you can save a recorded macro as a visual basic.net, visual basic 6, or c#.net.
i have a general idea of what .net is... it is intended to be a means of accessing and controlling information in the windows platform. and in particular, it was designed to use the same format in multiple languages.
i understand that the product microsoft calls visual basic has gone through some significant changes over the years. in particular, they've changed from the older ".com" that was in visual basic 6, to the ".net" format that is in the current version of visual basic.
now, throw into the mix the topic of vba. i am thinking of this as a subset of the full visual basic programming environment. but, i am unclear where this falls in regards to .com vs. .net. i know, at least, that older versions of vba (say 5 years ago) were definitely the .com version. but, i have several questions;
-what is the current status of vba in general? has it switched to .net?
-what is the vba in excel? has it also changed over the years from .com to .net?
-does solidworks use vba?
i just purchased vba for dummies 5th edition, published 2007. will this help the situation, or make it worse?
joe dunfee
sw 2009 sp3.0 windows xp
hp compaq dc5800 microtower
nvidia quadro fx 3700
i'm on my way to learn vba or vb.net i didn't decide yet wich one i'll learn but all i know untill now is that vba.net is more powerful and easier than vba.
also i think .net programming languages is the feature.
mohamed abdel moniem | mechanical engineer
cswp, cswa, cswp core, cswp-smtl
solidworks 2009 sp3.0
vista x64 sp1.0
intel q6600, 8gb ram
ati hd 4850
3dconnexions spacenavigator
hi mohammad,
if you are a new in programming field then go vb vb just and overview and the switch to vb.net because without knowing how to read macor it would be much hard for you to write something for solidworks.
i'm not entirely sure how vba fits in, but microsoft has pulled the plug on vb6. vb.net is the new "standard". actually .net in general is the new standard, wether you are going to be using vb or c# (or other .net enabled languages).
nicolai søndergaard
lm glasfiber a/s
i think ms has lost their way on pulling the plug on the "macro" language. the whole point of having a macro language is so that someone can quickly and easily simplify tasks. moving to vb from the original macro language was a so-so step at the time, but ended up being a good thing in the long run. however, the step of now trying to force everyone into a whole separate programming package kinda missed the point of what was trying to be accomplished by having the macro language. if i was a programmer, i'd already be writing in c# or c++. the point of vb6 was to make stronger programming methods available to average joes. without it, there isn't much difference between vb.net and just using c.
matt lorono
solidworks 2007 sp3.1
cad engineer/ecn analyst
matt, do your comments include the .net macros in 2009? i dinked around with vb6 and vba macros, and didn't find it to be average joe easy. i've heard that vb.net is a little easier, and the vb.net macro language is more closely aligned with the main language. am i missing or mis-remembering something?
dale dunn
structure since sw2006 (or earlier), but, didn't upgrade the .net revision until sw2009. i believe the latest vb.net revision is 3.5.
since sw uses the .net structure for it's api, any macros are omega language at the core and do not use the win32.dll's.
am i following this correctly?
tobin sparks
structure for it's api, any macros are omega language at the core and do not use the win32.dll's.
the api has 2 files for each, a tlb (legacy win32) and a dll (.net), that is why vba still works being an alpha language, and .net vsta macros work using the dll omega language
luke,
thanks for that. all things considered it's surprising it works at all .
thanks again - very informative
tobin sparks
.nov.com