Re: WORD97: is it worth upgrading?

[JIMCHEVAL -at- AOL -dot- COM]

In a message dated 97-08-29 12:32:46 EDT, bjf -at- wavefront -dot- com writes:

<< Mostly they convert cleanly, but when they don't, it's a
 real pain.  Anything that has legacy Word 2.0 code (including
 something as simple was WW2_Insert) chokes the converter.>>
Another thing that was already poorly documented in Word 6 and has
predictably been changed (not improved) is access to Word dialog boxes.  In
particular, I struggled to implement FileFind as a macro because it allows
you to process selected files en masse.  Guess what now doesn't convert
cleanly?  One reason is that they generalize the concept to
Application.Search (Search becomes one property of the Application Object.)

In Word, you would think that Application.Search refers to the application
(Word)'s search tool (FileFind).  But in fact the dialog box and the Visual
Basic instruction don't seem to be automatically linked. (If they are, it
isn't made clear how.)  So I've ended up capturing parameters from the old
Word Basic instructions (semi-translated) and assigning them to the
Application.Search parameters.

A lot of people have no idea what I just said, right? See below.

 << It's not the commands that are
 driving me nuts -- it's the concepts behind the commands.  >>

If I understand properly, part of the problem is that because they've made
the whole process MORE rational it is, at first, anti-intuitive.

Consider a hypothetical instruction:

Face.Nose.WipeWith:= Kleenex

Face is an object, nose a property of the object.  WipeWith is an action
taken on the object, here assigned the parameter "Kleenex" (instead of say
"Fine Linen Handkerchief.")

(None of this syntax or terminology is precise - I'm new to all this myself.)

Visual Basic includes a certain number of objects, each of which have
properties. A generic set of actions can be performed on many of these, but
with different specific items.  For instance, instead of Word's "StartOfRow",
valid only in a table, you get something like:

Table.Startof:=Row

Instead of "CharRight 1" to move a character 1 space to the right, you get:

Selection.MoveRight Unit:=wdCharacter,Count:=1

This is more meticulous and not exactly intuitive, but it does allow you to
substitute "wdWord" for the unit instead of using an entirely different
instruction for "WordRight". Also, the basic logic applies across
applications, so once you understand it for Word, you can also decipher it
for Access:

RecordSet.Field(3).Name [=name of a field in a table, or strictly speaking,
in one record in a table, thus a 'RecordSet']

RecordSet.Field(3).Value [the value of the same field]

Though it's unfamiliar, it's rigorously logical in a way application-specific
macros like WordBasic were never meant to be.

But then, a language teacher once told me that Finnish has the most
rigorously logical grammar of any language he knew.

And how many people do you know who speak Finnish?

Jim Chevallier
Los Angeles
======================================================
Visit Chez Jim: Jim Chevallier's Home Page - http://www.gis.net/~jimcheval
also - http://www.la-actors.com to see some LA Actors
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