Introduction

When it comes to Windows applications that bare their inner souls to be scripted or automated the Microsoft Office family of applications arguably tops the pile. Word, Excel, Outlook, Access, PowerPoint even Visio and Publisher all sport deep and extensive object models exposing everything from the formula in a spreadsheet cell to the individual characters in a Word document or the properties of a field in a database table. Most of the Office applications can act as COM automation servers under the control of external scripts, just as we have done with QuickTime Player in Chapter 8.

Not only that, but Office applications also feature a powerful internal programming language known as Visual Basic for Applications (VBA). Armed with the object model for an application, with its access to the logical objects and UI elements of a spreadsheet or Word document, a VBA script developer can very quickly pull together impressive mini-applications that come in the guise of an Excel or Word document. VBA is a full-featured programming language that is almost indistinguishable from Visual Basic 6.

But where Visual Basic enjoys the open spaces of its own forms and a toolbox full of controls with which to populate them, in a typical Office application VBA is restricted to using the current document window or form as its playing field. And as for controls, there is a limited set of standard UI controls that can be placed on this window, such as a button, text field, or list box. These are available from...