I'm trying to hide a form from the menu using VBA; I've Googled this, but everything is giving me the .visible option, however I want to hide it from the groups menu located on the left side. I could just as easily manually do this, however it's very tedious and I can't be going on other user's computers to do so.
Is this possible?
I might suggest normally you should only disable menus vs. removing them all together, might suggest doing an enable/disable menu item instead..
It should be possible but how much work is it and is it worth it to you? It isn't clear what your host application is just that you're using VBA. Might suggest the host application may already allow for customization if so use what it provides.
If the app doesn't allow customizing your menu you can still do it, just how much work is it worth for you? You'll need to look at the Win32 way of doing things. If not familiar with Win32 and menus take a look and start here looking here at MSDN to start learning about menus in Windows. After this you'll find Pinvoke will be handle to give you C#/VB sample to call what is needed. The VB should be useful but you will probably need to further translate the VB to VBA for your needs. FYI when starting out a a C/C++ developer back in the day 30 years ago it was anticipated anyone getting into windows might take them a few months, there is a lot you'll need to get up to speed on. Thus is this feature really worth it?
Related
When you create an new VCL form with one and put one TEdit and one TComboBox in it windows text suggestions works only with TComboBox. I guess this is because the Edit part of the combobox is a windows edit. I cannot seem to find anywhere how to make the VCL's edit behave the same way. Is there some IME messages I need to handle in a certain way or anything else?
What you ask is usually named autocomepletion.
TEdit doesn't support this out of the box (Not that I am aware of).
But there are several solutions floating around on the internet.
Not a direct solution, but have look at the answers to this question and also this one.
There is source code available for several solutions, you'll find it with this search on Google.
I'm currently looking for ways to automate some tasks in Eclipse.
For instance, let's say I have a couple of ant files that I'll want to run a couple of times per hour. Being able to assign a hot key to each one of them, so that I could easily run them without having to click, bring the context menu up and click again would bring joy into my life.
Other example would be build/run configurations. I have a couple of them on my project and I'd love to have a way of running each one of them with a different hot key configuration.
Moreover, the very nature of a project I'm currently working on involves a lot of experimentation and trying, so having to click and use my mouse a lot is definitely driving me insane. There are other similar things that I would like to get automated as well (for example, each time I do a commit I'd like to also run some command over my project's folder, etc).
Is there some tool for Eclipse(or outside it) that'll somehow allow me to automate these kinds of tasks? Would Vim for Eclipse help me anyhow?
After some years coding I feel like I have hit a stone wall. I came to the conclusion that I am losing way too much time with my mouse. Yes, I know that a lot of Eclipse actions have correspondent hot keys, but a lot of others don't. I want the ultimate solution !
There are several solutions:
Use a console. Consoles allow to remember the last commands (on Unix, you can even search). So instead of mouse-fu, it's Alt-TabUpReturn
There was Eclipse Monkey to script Eclipse. Not sure if it still works but it might.
On Sourceforge is Practical Macro. No documentation that I could find, though.
EclipseShell might also work, not sure.
Update (Year 2022). Aaron has provided many options in his answer. It seems any of those are working. I am going to try the old ant builder.
https://www.vogella.com/tutorials/ApacheAnt/article.html
im just wondering as I couldn't find an answer on google (well, maybe Ive been trying the wrong keywords here >.< )...
A thing I've always dreamt about was a stack/pile cut feature which remembers the - uhm, lets say - 10 last things I've cut out or copied for pasting... Is there such a feature and if so, what is it called?
furthermore - is there a possibility to include your own suggestions for autocompletion? I'm not asking for much, just e.g. a while(true) suggestion instead of or extending the default ones...
Probably this should be migrated to superuser, but Im quite uncertain as this is somehow more programming related...
Thanks ever so much :-)
OK, the first part of the question I could answer myself:
there are templates (Prefs -> Java (or whatever) -> Editor -> Templates) where you can add your custom tags :-) quite fancy this one! (always wanted to type "forever" and get a for(;;) loop)...
so, I did some digging and found that some people refer to that kind of feature as a paste stack...
for windows users clipX will do the trick for general use (as well as in an IDE). for the use in eclipse only the best I could come up with is ViPlugIn which enables a Vim-styled cut, copy & paste feature which gives you some registers where you can store your "pastries" :-)
unfortunately this doesn't come for free (it's 20USD) - will work (AFAIK) without a license but you will be prompted a "missing license" each time you start up eclipse...
The first feature you've meantioned is often called "Multiple Clipboards." I've found two plugins that do the job, but didn't like either. (IIRC neither could interact both ways with the system clipboard.)
I have been supporting a web application at work for our Call Center unit for about 2 years now. The app is written in ASP.NET 3.5 with SQL server 2005 database. I’ve been asked to expand the call detail section to allow agents to edit the current call note with the ability to revert back to its previous version. Now, that’s all cool but now the manager wants to be able to click on any particular note and see all edits with changes highlighted in yellow (and if something was deleted, he wants to SEE the deleted text crossed out). Actually, what I need is very similar to how Stackoverflow handles edits on their questions. I’ve been thinking about how to go about this and after doing research and Google-ing of course, I am still unsure which route to take. I am fairly new to .NET development. Any ideas on the best technique for highlighting the changes in UI? I am afraid I am going to have to store a copy of the entire note each time they make a change because the manager wants to be able to easily review notes and revert back to ANY version (not just the most recent one) before sending the monthly call report off to our VIP customers. Since this department OFTEN changes their mind on things, I want to make sure the new functionality is scalable and easy to maintain. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. I am really just looking for someone to point me in the right direction; maybe there are some tools out there that can be useful, recommended keywords in Google lookup, etc.
This will be difficult do to.
You'll need a "text editor" control that can not only edit the text, but which can also tell you what changes were made.
You then need to store not only the final text string, but also the list of changes
You'll then need to be able to display the text plus changes, using strike-outs, and different colors for inserts vs. changes
You'll need to do this not only for the changes of a single user, but you'll need to store each users' changes in the database, and will need to be able to display all the changes, all at once.
Your manager should be really sure he needs this.
Some tools for doing the diff for you can be found at Any decent text diff/merge engine for .NET?.
This would entail storing every version like you say. This should allow you to implement it similarly to SO. I seem to recall reading or hearing Jeff mention it, but wasn't able to find it, likely in one of the SO podcasts.
Easiest would be to store the text for each revision, then when the user wants to see the diff use a diff tool to generate the highlighted text.
Here is some Javascript diff code:
http://ejohn.org/projects/javascript-diff-algorithm/
If all the computers have Word installed you may be able to use a Word control to accomplish this. TortoiseSVN has scripts in its program directory which can take two word documents and produce a document with changes highlighted. To see this create c:\aaa.doc and bbb.doc, then install TortoiseSVN and run:
wscript.exe "C:\program files\tortoisesvn\Diff-Scripts\diff-doc.js" c:\aaa.doc c:\bbb.doc //E:javascript
I think you should see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revision_control
I have the in my opinion odd request to close a wizard form as Done or OK if Enter was pressed on the keyboard even if the OK/DONE button is not focused.
In my opinion that would be a usability mistake. For example: In the wizard you may have multiple controls, buttons, check boxes, multiple line controls and they all have a different behavior on actions from the ENTER key. And don't forget the other buttons in the navigation of the wizard, what if they are focused?
Should these controls don't react on Enter like expected before? Should they do their actions but in other cases where Enter does no further action for the control it should close the form == inconsistent?
I think that is a typical request where the needs of one person would help him but confuse many other.
In my opinion Wizards are very special because they are not only made to make things easier but also very often focus on people with less experience with the functionality of an application. So I take every request serious and try to look into all arguments for and against the request.
Is my point of view to narrow? Are there some usability studies or guidelines especially for Wizards to backup my opinion or maybe proof me wrong?
Thank you very much!
Michael
Well, here's the thing: there are two kinds of users you have to take into account here.
First kind of users are the Baby Boomers and Gen Xers (e.g., people who have been using computers in the 70s/80s) who are accustomed to pressing Enter to move to the next field. These are the ones who learned how to use computers in terminals/consoles and enter means you're finished typing on that field and would move on to the next.
Second kind of users are those who were weaned on Windows. These people are used to pressing the Tab key to move to the next field. Pressing enter to them means they are done with the whole thing.
So which convention should you follow? That will depend on whether you're targetting the first or second type of users, the environment (Windows or Web?), and the OS.
If you're targetting Windows forms, it is much advisable to be consistent to the OS (e.g., letting people use Tab instead of Enter) for form entry. In the web, you're in a quandary, since Enter is trapped by the web browser as a submit event.
In the end the only useful advice I can offer is to try it out with your target customers and see whether they prefer Enter over Tab.
I think the key is to test. You can't really guess what your users will find comfortable, you have to watch them try it. Especially since there are multiple incompatible standards you could follow, you are just going to have to see if this change works for most users in your audience.
I would be of the same opinion, perhaps mention it to the client and let them use the final version in both modes. I guess you have to give them what they ask for when they are paying.
To me this also seems to be an odd request but as Paul says, if the client wants it, then the client gets it.
However from a usability/comprehension standpoint, I would make the border of the ok/done button much thicker then normal so that it stands out a bit and maybe indicate to people that it has special behaviour.
Also I would perhaps make a note in the dialog/wizard box that hitting enter will cause the wizard to close as if the OK/Done button had been pressed.
While the one user may know that hitting enter will close it, unless someone else is specifically told, they will not be expecting that behaviour.
I think you should have a finish page to facilitate this. If the user presses enter by mistake the worst is that he won't finish the wizard, only go to the next page (which may be the finish page). This is good for situations where nuclear bombs are controlled by said wizards.
On the finish page pressing enter would finish the wizard (and blow up Iraq, bring down a satellite, or erase Jimbob's farm).
If the user can re-run the wizard I don't think it would be disasterous if they accidentally finished it.
Remember, wizards should never take any action until they are finished, in case the user cancels or such. Confirmation dialog boxes on a finish are tedious and I will hunt you down if you use them, I think once the user has finished the wizard he is pretty sure about his intent.
Maybe the client has good reasons for it.
Imagine the following situation:
A screen with lots of optional fields that gets opened/closed a lot and where data accuracy is not really critical.
Think of a little program that pops up every half hour to ask you what you have been doing, for what client and maybe some notes so it can gather this info and generate your timesheet.
Being able to open up the screen, enter the info and close it all really quick and with as little hassle as possible is way more important than the accuracy of the data.
I can imagine lots of situations where being able to confirm the field without having focus can be usefull.
Is this request perhaps because the UAT that was undertaken on the wizard involved users that weren't aware that pressing ENTER will have the same effect as clicking the button?
If when the final page of the wizard is displayed, the 'Finish' button is already highlighted (as I would expect) that maybe it's a matter of giving the user some cue that they can also press ENTER at this point.
If you take Google for example, I seem to remember that if you tend to systematically type your search term in and then click the 'Search' button with the mouse, a message is displayed at the top of the search results that kindly hints to you that you can also just press ENTER. Obviously, this is not something that can easily be done in your case because this is the last page of the wizard, but maybe this is the sort of thing that your client is trying to get you to engineer around?
Educate your clients. Show them some documentation as why that suggestion might not be a good usability practice.
Some reputable website will work best, as clients will usually believe a third party before believing you. After all, to them you are probably just being lazy and don't want to work more.
If the client still doesn't concede, then just do what they want, and warn them that it is not the good thing to do.
Although in your case, the "good thing to do" seems a little on the gray area.
I would argue that you could possibly use this functionality to move forward through the wizard but ONLY if no other action had been taken on that page.
The moment a field is completed or a button clicked/highlighted or the cursor is moved from the default position, the Enter functionality should revert to that of the standard OS.
As others have said, clearly this would only work if those using the wizard were made aware of this as part of their application training, but it might prove useful for moving quickly through un-used pages of the wizard to get to where the user needs to be.
Doesn't matter. Choose and be consistant in all your applications