In rare cases, yes, you may be finished. More often, however, the users of your application won't be completely satisfied. Sure, your application adheres to all of the original specifications, but things change. Seeing an application working often causes the user to think of other things that the application could be doing.
When you need to update or revise your application, you'll appreciate that you designed it well in the first place and that you fully documented your efforts.
Other Development Issues
You need to keep several other issues in mind when developing an application—especially if you don't know exactly who will be using the application. If you're developing an application that will have widespread use (a shareware application, for example), you have no way of knowing how the application will be used, what type of system it will run on, or what other software will be running concurrently.
The user's installed version of Excel
Although Excel 2019 is available, many large corporations are still using earlier versions of Excel. Unfortunately, there is no guarantee that an application developed for, say, Excel 2010 will work perfectly with later versions of Excel. If you need your application to work with a variety of Excel versions, the best approach is to work with the lowest version—and then test it thoroughly with all other versions.
Also, be aware of any security updates or new changes to Excel released with service packs (for stand-alone versions of Excel). If some of your users are on Office 365, be aware that Microsoft has adopted an agile release cycle, allowing it to release updates to Office 365 practically on a monthly basis. This is great news for those who love seeing new features added to Excel. It's not so great if you're trying to manage compatibility with your application. Although rare, some changes introduced in these releases can cause certain components of your application no longer to work as designed.
Language issues
Consider yourself fortunate if all of your end users have the English language version of Excel. Non-English versions of Excel aren't always 100 percent compatible, so that means additional testing on your part. In addition, keep in mind that two users can both be using the English language version of Excel yet use different Windows regional settings. In some cases, you may need to be aware of potential problems.
System speed
Although system speed and processing power has become less of an issue on modern PCs and devices, testing your application for performance and speed is still a recommended best practice. A procedure that executes almost instantaneously on your system may take several seconds to execute on another system. In the world of computers, several seconds may be unacceptable.
TIP
When you gain more experience with VBA, you'll discover that there are ways to get the job done and there are ways to get the job done fast. It's a good idea to get into the habit of coding for speed. Other chapters in this book can certainly help you out in this area.
Video modes
As you probably know, users' video displays vary widely. Higher-resolution displays and even dual displays are becoming increasingly common. Just because you have a super-high-resolution monitor, you can't assume that everyone else does.
Video resolution can be a problem if your application relies on specific information being displayed on a single screen. For example, if you develop an input screen that fills the screen in 1280 × 1024 mode, users with a 1024 × 768 display won't be able to see the whole input screen without scrolling or zooming.
Also, it's important to realize that a restored (that is, not maximized or minimized) workbook is displayed at its previous window size and position. In the extreme case, it's possible that a window saved by using a high-resolution display may be completely off the screen when opened on a system running in a lower resolution.
Unfortunately, you can't automatically scale things so that they look the same regardless of the display resolution. In some cases, you can zoom the worksheet (using the Zoom control in the status bar), but doing so reliably may be difficult. Unless you're certain about the video resolution that the users of your application will use, you should probably design your application so that it works with the lowest common denominator—800 × 600 or 1024 × 768 mode.
As you will discover later in the book, you can determine the user's video resolution by using Windows API calls from VBA. In some cases, you may want to adjust things programmatically, depending on the user's video resolution.
CHAPTER 2 Introducing Visual Basic for Applications
IN THIS CHAPTER
Using Excel's macro recorder
Working with the Visual Basic Editor
Understanding the Excel Object Model
Diving into the Range object
Knowing where to turn for help
Getting a Head Start with the Macro Recorder
A macro is essentially Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) code that you can call to execute any number of actions. In Excel, macros can be written or recorded.
Excel programming terminology can be a bit confusing. A recorded macro is technically no different from a VBA procedure that you create manually. The terms macro and VBA procedure are often used interchangeably. Many Excel users call any VBA procedure a macro. However, when most people think of macros, they think of recorded macros.
Recording a macro is like programming a phone number into your smartphone. First you manually enter and save a number. Then when you want, you can redial the number with the touch of a button. Just like on a smartphone, you can record your actions in Excel while you perform them. While you record, Excel gets busy in the background, translating and storing your keystrokes and mouse clicks to VBA code. After a macro is recorded, you can play back those actions any time you want.
The absolute best way to become familiar with VBA, without question, is simply to turn on the macro recorder and record some of the actions that you perform in Excel. This approach is a quick way to learn the relevant VBA syntax for a task.
In this section, you'll explore macros and learn how you can use the macro recorder to start familiarizing yourself with VBA.
Creating your first macro
