A Visio VBA alternative, twinBASIC, has made a lot of progress in the past 12 months.
I think it will take another year to mature, but for Visio desktop development it has these huge benefits:
- You quickly build your solution as a Visio add-in (like the .NET VSTO add-in), and it does not use .NET interop so it is much faster for solutions that access Visio objects frequently.
- Compiled code (no interop + compiled code can make complex solutions MUCH faster!)
- A far superior error handling system (vbWatchdog), VBA error-handling was developed by the devil in my opinion. (it is sooooooooooooooooo terrible)
- I have a hunch the developers will solve windows forms high DPI scaling much better than how WinForms in .NET VSTO addin solutions work
I think in the second half of 2023 twinBASIC is going to make a lot of waves, there are both free and paid versions of twinBASIC I will need the paid one (and it is not an inexpensive subscription, but worth it for me).
See for more information:
https://twinbasic.com/
Quote from: Visisthebest on September 16, 2022, 10:00:39 AM- You quickly build your solution as a Visio add-in (like the .NET VSTO add-in), and it does not use .NET interop so it is much faster for solutions that access Visio objects frequently.
You mean faster: write code & make solution or performance?
Quote from: Visisthebest on September 16, 2022, 10:00:39 AM
- You quickly build your solution as a Visio add-in (like the .NET VSTO add-in), and it does not use .NET interop
Haven't seen that on their site, nor on Youtube.
Do you have any references?
Both but in particular the software performance for complex solutions will be better, especially if you read from and write to a lot of Visio objects!
Writing complex solutions in twinBASIC will be faster too, as the VBA IDE is just absolutely terrible. twinBASIC's IDE will be much better, at a minimum.
Here is a guide to how to make a COM add-in for Microsoft Office desktop applications:
https://nolongerset.com/create-com-addin-with-twinbasic/
I am pretty sure COM add-in functionality will be enhanced quite a lot in the next 12 months, there are a lot of Excel developers who are looking to move to something better than VBA.