Andrew, any comment or suggestions? --Jean
I was not aware that LinkedIn had a discussion group for LO users.
I would love to know what they feel is worse about the LO macro recorder over that in OOo version 1.3 (or what ever the last version was).
Certainly the code created by the Macro recorder is poor. It is sufficiently poor that one of the original developers opined that it should be removed. The OOo macro recorder seems to primarily record dispatches, which although useful for quick and dirty things, is at least marginally useful. The same developer that opined that perhaps the existing recorder should be removed threw out estimates and comments on how to fix it; I think that the original estimate was about $100K worth of developer time.
My personal opinion is that someone probably said "hey, we could scrap together a macro recorder with very little effort by intercepting dispatches", and thus the recorder was born... as opposed to a deliberate process of designing in a "good" macro recorder.
The few times that I have looked at the Basic object model used to interact with MSO, it seemed to clearly be easier for many things than using the OOo model. For example, the process for dealing with selected stuff. On the other hand, OOo mostly exposes the actual internals, so once you learn it for one language, you have it for almost all of them (with a few minor differences). I have no idea if the object model available in VB for MSO is also available for other languages (because I never cared enough to try it).
I have written in VBA, and it was a horrid experience, primarily because the language has so many bugs that were long ago fixed in StarBasic; array methods are a prime example. I never bother to use most of the standard VBA array methods directly because the fringe cases cause VBA to fail. I wrap them all in safe methods complete with error handling to prevent macro failure. This foolishness was fixed in OOo many years ago. Then again, near as I can figure the MS C++ IO libraries contain the same bugs today that they contained 10 years ago, so I am not holding my breath for them to fix any of them.
The moment you can step away from straight VB and use .NET, however, life becomes much better and you can ignore many of the buggy language features and use .NET classes instead. I know that this has nothing to do with manipulating the internals directly, but it does put a nicer frame around the access.
In my opinion, the OOo object model was meant for good programmers comfortable in C++. This object model was then made available in StarBasic with many of the difficulties hidden away by the Basic Bridge (or glue, or what ever it is called), but, it is still difficult for an inexperienced programmer to wrap their mind around it. Well, when just starting, it is probably difficult for an experienced programmer to wrap their mind around it because it helps a lot to understand how the internals fit together.
Having translated a few VB macros to OOo, I can say that some things are much easier and some are much more difficult. If all you know is MS stuff, then it will all feel more difficult.
As for the "Hell" that the new LO users are feeling, Yeah, I get it. I frequently feel that way when I try to do certain advanced things in MSO. Spent a couple of hours one day with an experienced MSO user trying to format tables in a specific way. At the end of the day, I made the changes in OOo and then wrote a DOC file and we were done. I will readily admit that just because I could not figure it out, or any of the MSO users that I asked, it does not mean that it is more difficult in MSO. Back in the very early 90s, I suffered from the delusion that MAC was an easier OS to use (because I bought into their marketing). I then took a college computer instructor with years of experience in Windows, Solaris, and others... This professor was unable to figure out how to do certain "simple" tasks on a MAC. My point is that one must be careful to not mistake familiarity with ease of use. Based on this I can't say if the newer version of MSO are easier to use or not. I just know that they totally changed the interface and things that used to be stupid simple for me leave me spending extended time surfing the net for solutions and asking longtime MSO users. Sadly, most users don't use complex features and they have no idea how to do them either.
I do not have the experience with programming MSO to say that it is, or is not easier. But my guess, based on not much, is that it is ---- just as I used to think that the MAC was easier to use than say Windows. For me, it is clearly easier to use OOo / AOO / LO, because I know it and it works on all of my operating systems. Just figuring out how to add a button in a blank form in Access to call a macro left me thinking of all the painful things I might like to do to the people that made it so difficult.
I think that I am rambling off topic....