Toggling Addins in MSWord(2003)

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Charles Kenyon
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Re: Toggling Addins in MSWord(2003)

Post by Charles Kenyon »

@Chris

I do use the Startup folder. Virtually everything in it is a shortcut/link to a file in a remote location. I have few templates in the Startup folder.
At one time I had six versions of Word running sumultaneously. Currently I have two.
Usually, I simply add a template using the Templates and Add-Ins dialog. At future sessions, it remains in that dialog, although unchecked. If I want to permanently add it, I create a shortcut for the Startup folder.

Unless you are developing for a couple hundred people, I think you are chasing a will-o'-whisp. I can't imagine putting the kind of effort you are exerting for my own use unless it was merely a learning exercise. I thank you for sharing your findings here.

Happy New Year!

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ChrisGreaves
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Re: Toggling Addins in MSWord(2003)

Post by ChrisGreaves »

Charles Kenyon wrote:
01 Jan 2022, 16:51
Unless you are developing for a couple hundred people, I think you are chasing a will-o'-whisp. I can't imagine putting the kind of effort you are exerting for my own use unless it was merely a learning exercise. I thank you for sharing your findings here.
Thank you Charles.
Until ten years ago I did develop Word/VBA applications for large firms.
Now I don't :hooray:
You are correct, this was a learning exercise posted here in the hopes that it adds up to 0.000000001% to the knowledge base.
Happy New Year!
Well, of course I am having a Happy New Year. It is always encouraging to read Charels Kenyon's replies to my posts. :thankyou:

Cheers
Chris
An expensive day out: Wallet and Grimace

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ChrisGreaves
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Re: Toggling Addins in MSWord(2003)

Post by ChrisGreaves »

ChrisGreaves wrote:
01 Dec 2021, 22:18
I am still putting this through its paces.
I am looking at reducing the time to load MSWord and starting useful work, amongst other things,
(Word2003, still) I have put the method through its paces and decided to abandon the method and return to my previous (November 2021) setup of loading all my utility library templates and application templates into my Word Startup folder ("T:\Greaves\Startup\Word"). This involves returning to every dot/doc that referenced my UW.dot, and every application dot that references other libraries, and restoring the Tools References to point to templates in T:\Greaves\Startup\Word.

The first half-dozen templates are straightforward, then I fix others as they stumble.
The good news is that I had not finished converting the original set, so those that had not yet stumbled will not stumble in the future.

My thought four months ago was to reduce the overall time spent loading template code that I did not need; to restrict its loading time to those events when It was needed. I saw the conversion of Tools References as a one-off cost to migrate to my new method and was happy to swallow that cost.

My subjective view is that when I need to edit a template, or when a startup template fails with a run-time error, but always when I run my first macro of a session, Word2003/VBA takes the time (ten seconds?) to open up and inspect every template in the startup folder.

It is as if opening one of the dozen or so "doors" requires that we first unlock every one of the fourteen doors before twisting the one door handle we need to twist.
This behaviour of the VBA may have changed in later versions of Word, but I doubt it.

Cheers
Chris
An expensive day out: Wallet and Grimace

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Charles Kenyon
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Re: Toggling Addins in MSWord(2003)

Post by Charles Kenyon »

Just a note that today I discovered a problem with my method of locating my Add-Ins in one spot and using a shortcut/alias to it in the Startup Folder. I have macros to insert Building Blocks (AutoText) from Add-Ins and it breaks if I am using a shortcut rather than the actual file in the Startup Folder.
Situation 2 in my web page will not work (but Situation 3 code will).
http://www.addbalance.com/usersguide/au ... ldingBlock
In your case, you would be using the AutoText collection rather than the Building Blocks collection, I imagine.

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ChrisGreaves
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Re: Toggling Addins in MSWord(2003)

Post by ChrisGreaves »

Charles Kenyon wrote:
04 Apr 2022, 20:00
In your case, you would be using the AutoText collection rather than the Building Blocks collection, I imagine.
Hello Charles, and thanks for this delightful bit of Tuesday-morning news.
Over the years I have had occasional problems with shortcut key assignments and the like, but they seem always to appear after a period of months after installation of Word.
"Any macro, recorded or written, should be stored in the same template that holds the building block." makes me wonder whether their is a weird bug related to an accumulation of internal data, or wear or tear, that causes Word2003 to accumulate errors. A fresh installation seems to fix the problem, but since my copy of MSW is heavily customized, I try to do that as little as possible.

I do have plans to upgrade from 2003 once my VBA wears out (hasn't happened yet), but seeing that they still have bugs in 2007, I might push the schedule further back to when i am 130 rather than 120 years old. (grin)
To the best of my knowledge, I have not employed shortcuts to templates; to BATch files that load templates, yes; to documents that I load with a tap of the Enter key, yes; even to those documents that contain macros.

Cheers
Chris
An expensive day out: Wallet and Grimace