Visio VBA alternative is progressing (twinBASIC)

[Visisthebest]

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/

[Surrogate]

- 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?

[Yacine]

- 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?

[Visisthebest]

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.