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Using Excel with VisualWorks

March 16, 2010 16:57:41.324

This morning I did a screencast on using Excel with VisualWorks; I thought a simple walkthrough might be handy as well. The first thing you need to do after starting VW is pull up the Parcel Manager, select "OS-Windows" on the left, and "COM-All" on the right. Right click and load:

Next, close that window, and in a workspace, add this little script. Once you try it out, you can experiment on your own - and use the "Browse Automation Classes" option under the COM menu in the Launcher to explore the interfaces available to you:


"Start Excel, get dispatch driver"
excel := COMDispatchDriver createObject: 'Excel.Application'.

"Open Excel visibly"
excel setVisible: true.
excel getWorkbooks Add.
sheet := excel getActiveSheet.

"Write some data"
(excel getRange: 'A1') setValue: 'Name'.
(excel getRange: 'A2') setValue: 'Fred Flintstone'.
(excel getRange: 'A1:A2') getFont setBold: true.

"Read a cell"
(excel getRange: 'A1') getValue.

"Copy Cells"
(excel getRange: 'A1:A2') Select.
excel setCutCopyMode: false.
excel getSelection Copy.
Transcript show: Screen default getExternalSelection.

That code creates a dispatch driver, and then calls various COM APIs exposed by Excel. You'll see a few dialogs like this pop up as you execute that, as the message sends are going to COM, not Smalltalk - and thus, they don't exist in the image:

Just use the "proceed" button to dismiss those. Once you've executed all the code, you should see something like this:

Which should be Excel with the data you entered highlighted, and the copied data sitting in the Transcript, where we printed it. That's it - you're now working with Excel from VW. Go ahead and use the automation browser to explore the full API set.

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posted by James Robertson

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