On 2/6/08, Jonathan Kaye <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I'm having a real problem getting my foot in the door learning OOo macros.
Hello Jonathan, If you really want to learn about OOo macros I recommend the book of Andrew Pitonyak. Unlike the document which, as the introduction states, is a random repository of macros organized by subject, the book is very well structured and should give you the headstart you need. I also found the forum www.oooforums.org to be a real gold mine of macros of all sorts written by really bright people. > I can't get any of the example macros to work in OOo 2.3.1 running on Debian > Lenny 2.6.22 (kernel). I get a variety of errors which I can send the list, > if requested. Please do, but I recommend you use the OOoDev list or the OOoForum for these types of questions > I also learn by recording macros from a sequence of commands via keystrokes, > studying the code and then adapting it to my needs. But when I look at the > code generated by recording a macro (say and search and replace command), > it's total gibberish and looks nothing like the example macros in the > manuals. I'm getting very frustrated since I don't want to do anything > really complicated. In MS Office I learnt a lot by creating macros with the recorder and analyzing the code, but unfortunately this method will not work with OOo as the dispatcher uses commands that are very hard to understand. Paolo Mantovani created a while ago a macro that converted the recorded macros into "plain" OOoBasic, but I have never tried it. >I want to take the contents of, say, cell A1, perform a > series of search+replace functions (one-many;many-one replacements so this > is not a simple mapping) and have the result appear in cell B1. If you don't buy Andrew's book, try the document. Start with something simple such as creating a search descriptor and running a simple search. Then learn simple manipulation of cells in Calc so that finally you can move on to more complex examples. For Calc macros (of which I know very little) it is also possible to invoke the spreadsheet formulas from OOo, something rather useful at times. Finally, I think any wannabe macro programmers should install and make exensive use of XRay a great utility created by Bernard Marcelly (http://ooomacros.org/dev.php#101416) that displays all the methods and functions you can apply to an object. Really unvaluable unless you are a truly brave person, in which case you can refer to IDL reference guid in api.openoffice.org (not for the faint hearted). Cheers, Michele --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
