'Universal' programming

[BOAC]

I am in the middle of a largish 'suite' for a local organisation to allow monthly bookings sheets to be prepared and accessed and invoices to be raised from them and other functions.

The current 'chap' I work with has Office so it is written in VBA for ease and cheapness. However, I have to be prepared for the next mug to come along to be 'Office-less'. The actual running of the sheets works fine in OO apart from a bit of a twiddly bit in VBA on each sheet for change events, so sheet maintenance CAN pretty much take place in OO.

I have downloaded the guide to OO macros but not studied it yet, but would appreciate any suggestions on how to programme for non Office users and the poor souls with Linux and Macs who may come along. I had a dabble with QT a couple of years back but its handling of spreadsheets seemed to be embryonic then.

Any suggestions for cross-platform?

[mixture]

Client side....
Java
Adobe AIR

Otherwise... database driven web-app in a language of your choice.

[BOAC]

Java - ok, machine independent. Is 'Air' the same? 'My choice' of language is what I am seeking!

[mixture]

BOAC,

Yeah, technicalities aside, AIR is basically the client-side version of Flash. So most of the pretty, user-friendly things you can do in Flash, you can do in AIR (and vice versa). Its all part of the Adobe FLEX framework.

Have to admit I haven't personally had much programmer side exposure to it (I've used apps developed on it though). I tend to push web-apps more these days, but Java is a good old standby for client-side apps (and remains quite popular..... things like Eclipse are written in Java, or at least they were last time I checked).

Any reason you can't do a web-app ? Then you could choose from innumerable languages.

C/C++ can also be cross platform with a few tweaks here and there, plus recompiling.....

[BOAC]

It is looking a little promising for Google Docs which I have discovered have a form of macro language (it will require a re-write) but would appear to have most functions that VBA has and will be accessible cross-platform. Anyone tried it?

[BOAC]

Still trying to get to grips with Google script macros, which seem to be quite limited in terms of what VBA can do.

One task - for which I need to know if Java etc can cope - is responding to a sheet 'change' event, and I need to be sure that what ever language I use will enable spreadsheet handling without the relevant prog (eg Office/Excel) on the client machine.

[mixture]

if Java etc can cope

Java can do pretty much anything you want it to do if you've got the programming skills. "etc" are probably fairly flexible too.

However, I think your primary problem is looking at your situation in terms of spreadsheets. That's an antiquated and restricted view on the world.

Your original description

I am in the middle of a largish 'suite' for a local organisation to allow monthly bookings sheets to be prepared and accessed and invoices to be raised from them and other functions.

Is the sort of thing that can easily be done in a database driven web application, or any client-side language if you want to run some sort of app locally on machines.

I think you need to look a little more into the power that a database can give you. A properly designed and implemented database schema can provide data input/output to suit your needs.

Afterall, "invoices to be raised from them" is just formatting of output data from a query, and "montly booking sheets" are just a bunch of input forms.

Or is there some more to this story you're not telling us ?

[BOAC]

Or is there some more to this story you're not telling us ?

- nada. The system has been running for about 10 years using monthly sheets so I am tying not to frighten the horses.

f you've got the programming skills.

- ah! Those Err, no. That is why VBA is so good.

EDIT: Open/libreoffice macros are beginning to make a little sense, so 'steady the Buffs'. It is the re-write that is a daunting prospect, but I would have to do that for all the 'above' anyway.
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