VBA enabled applications

[borja1980]

Hi. I am an engineer interested in VBA. In the past, I have worked with the VBA language, and i have written little applications with it in Excel, Autocad, Access and SAP2000. Given the fact that there are a lot of software that can be automated with VBA, i was wondering is someone knew where i could find a list of the VBA-enabled applications, I mean, applications that can be accesed with VBA. In the VBA developer environment, there are a lot of references, but I think only the ones referring to the software that has been set up in my computer.
It seesm to me that there are also certain applications that can operate with VBA, but have not a manual describing the objects model, and the procedures, variables objects, and so forth. It would be good to be able to use these elements, and i would like to know if there is a way to access all this elements. I dont know if it is posible to search the *dll files of an VBA enabled application, i order to investigate how to use this elements.
Thanks in advenc

 

[SkipVought]

Hi,

Glad to see you came over from Eng-Tips to state your case. Welcome!

Don't know of any list of applications that use VB and if there were, it would be of marginal use, in my opinion, based on based on some anecdotal experience.

So what is your objective to be able to accomplish from, for example, the Excel VB Editor via VBA? Do you want to run some other application or access the data used by some application.

The former might be a formidable task; the latter, much more likely to be achieved. As you have observed, you have some level of visibility to the applications installed on your machine. At one time I thought similarly about access to the objects in my HP printer drivers, but found no documentation.

Closer to "home" I often wondered if I could go get access to other Properties/Methods within the Excel Object Model which might be really handy, but you have to do a lot of fruitless tinkering, which is, uh...er...um...FRUITLESS!

So maybe that just leaves access to data. Now THAT is worth digging for. Lots of hoops to jump through: permission, security, db research, networks...

In one instance, after years of sporadic investigation, got access to data generated my an application that monitors the activity of 100+ machines in a production machine shop. The time was ripe. Management was ready to get real metrics on production. But then there's understanding the db structure, the data, the process, in order to interpret the data in a meaningful manner.

And that's why an application like Excel or Access might make sense as a means of gathering data from some other application. In my case, I integrated the data related to machine operation with order performance data from SAP to show overall performance.

Fill us in on your objectives, please. Then we can respond in a more cogent manner.

 

[SkipVought]

...and I forgot to address your last question, " I dont know if it is posible to search the *dll files..."

Yes. In the Excel VB Editor is Tools > References...

This is a list of most libraries that are available to VBA. Your application may be listed.

BUT simply linking is not enough. You still need documentation to know how to use. The Object Browser will help. I also use the Watch Window faq707-4594.

 

[borja1980]

hello again. In the past I have worked with Ansis. It is a very powerful sofware for finite elements analisis. Back then, i tought it was great because it had implemented what is called APDL, an ansys oriented programming language that permits the user to write code in order to acess most of the commands of ansys. Then i discovered VBA, an idel tool that lets you work with diferents programms at a time. That way, for example, i can define input data in an excel sheet ( the front end of my "application"), then transmit it to another application like sap2000, performe some calculations, and retrieve the output, again to excel. In recent day I discovered the following website....

http://hecrasmodel.blogspot.com.es/2014/05/controlling-hec-ras.html..It

is a web where some guy says how to work with HECRAS ( an hidrology software) via VBA, he also sells a book where he explains how to do it. I have considered buying the book, beacuse I am curious how It can be done. For what I know, HECRAS has not documentation explaining the object model, the procedures, etc.
I also dont know if all the dll can be accesed with VBA, or in what language are written. I think this was what this guy did). Frankly, regarding the dlls, i am a bit lost.

I know that in Tools/reference there are a lot of library, but there are certain applications that are accesible with VBA, and are not present, HECRAS is an expample. You must ton install the software and look up if the library reference is present
Thanks for the responses.