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	Thursday, 9th February 2012, 20:14

Visual Basic

Add-Ins

The Code Snippet and the New Procedure have saved me hundreds of hours.

The VB add-ins in this page will add themselves to the Edit Toolbar and the Add-Ins Menu in the VB IDE.

These Add-Ins are compiled with Visual Basic 5.  They will also compile and run under Visual Basic 6.  Source code is included within all ZIP files.  If you're worried about viruses then simply recompile the code.

Ofcourse, if you would like any enhancements or find any problems let me known and I'll be happy to make the modifications required.

Code Snippet

This little tool has the potential to save you many hours of typing and debugging.  As you code, you'll see patterns emerging from your code, I urge you to move these patterns into the Code Snippet text file (SNIPPET.TXT).  When the need arises, simply insert the code from the Code Snippet Add-In.  As a byproduct, you spend less time debugging your code and your code is more stable.  It can also help you implement coding standards.

This snippet in the jpeg below is the module header comment snippet.  Inserting the module and function comment headers helps to remind you to adequately comment your code.  All you have to do is fill them out.  You never know, it could be you, who has to maintain it over the next few years.  The change control record is also a valuable audit trial of changes.

In the Module Header comment block below the '{@' and the '}@' character sequences are for a documentation extraction tool (similar to Javadoc and CCDOC) that is still under development.

New Procedure

This tool is a variation on the Code Snippet Add-In above.  This add-in is an alternative to the Microsoft's Add Procedure tool, with a couple of little additions, like the return type of a function.

The difference is that the template code produced and inserted by the code of the add-in.  The disadvantage with this solution is that you must change and recompile the add-in whenever you want to modify the code of the templates.  The advantage is that you can do a lot more in the code of the add-in to customise the template code before it's inserted, ie generate code for the different return types of functions.

I prefer this add-in for inserting code because it does a lot more for me than the Code Snippet add-in.  Although, this add-in only does the insertion of Sub, Property and Function code templates (the insertion of the Event code template isn't implemented yet).

Pretty Printer

Pretty Printer is an alternative to Microsoft's printing add-in.  This add-ins simply prints code.  It does not reformat the code.  That's what I've found the most usefull.

It provides:

• A combo box for printing, 1) a whole module or 2) the declarations area of a module or 3) a routine, property or subroutine from a module.
• A choice of landscape or portrait.
• A choice of point size, 8 or 10.  The font is Courier New, a non proportional font that I find easier to read and that maintians the code layout from the VB IDE window(s).
• A nicely formatted page header that includes the routine (if selected for printing) and the module name.
• A nicely formatted page footer with 1) the date and time the print out was generated, 2) page numbers in the form: 2 of 5.
• Line numbers within the module.  This feature is optional.
• Lines that overflow the page width will wrap.
• An approximation of the number of pages in the print out.
• When a whole module is printed the functions are printed in bold type face so that they can be easily identified.