Nope. Make your changes to the built-in menus and toolbars with the
customization context in your template. I have three or four separate
Add-Ins that all independently modify the built-in menus without any code.
You need good documentation in the Add-In in case you get conflicts.
My Add-Ins remove commands and add others, some built-in and some that are
custom commands, macros or AutoText. I know that the changes are in the
Add-ins and not in normal.dot because if I unload my Add-Ins, the menus
return to their default contents.
I generally build all of my custom commands in custom toolbars and then copy
them to the built-in menus but the changes are all saved in my templates. I
change them periodically (just made three changes to the File menu this
week, again, in my Add-In).
I am not defending Word. Word is a huge program and has major bugs; what you
are complaining about isn't major in my opinion. Especially since you have a
ready way of avoiding the problem. You do not need to be running code to
change the interface. If you insist on using code, your code could designate
your template as the customization context rather than normal.dot.
If you want to complain, the complaint department is elsewhere. I am a
fellow user who has received a lot of good help in these newsgroups and am
trying to share my experience with you. That is experience gathered from
Word 3 to Word 2003. I've used the methods I am talking about distributing
interface changes through a statewide law practice with 60 offices and
hundreds of computers with lawyers (scary) as primary users. You are
certainly welcome to continue being upset with Word and not try the methods
that have worked for me, though.
--
Charles Kenyon
Word New User FAQ & Web Directory: http://addbalance.com/word
Intermediate User's Guide to Microsoft Word (supplemented version of
Microsoft's Legal Users' Guide) http://addbalance.com/usersguide
See also the MVP FAQ: http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/ which is awesome!
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Post by Ray HernandezCharles,
The modification involves the Word Toolbar and not a user defined/created
Toolbar and therefore since the defs for that toolbar are been maintained in
normal.dot same problems.
I do not know how to clarify the issue of why we use coding for creating
menus and replacing built in menu commands with our own functionality other
than to say to you that things change over time and we find it a lot easier
to modify the code than to use the toolbar customization which is cumbersome
at best. Perhaps menus and toolbars that you build never change, are not part
of the Word built-in toolbars and therefore are basically static over time
and that is why that methodology works for you, but it does not work for us.
Bottom line if the functionality exists within the product it should work as
it is supposed too.
Post by Charles KenyonYou can put your changes in some other global template (without using code
or using the code only once to create the change). Once the change is made
and you save your global, it sticks. That is, it does not need to be redone
each time. You propogate that template to go into the user's startup folder
(a separate location for each user). You change the user login script to
update your template upon login so any changes can be made in one location
and will automatically propogate each time a person logs in.
See http://addbalance.com/word/movetotemplate.htm for step-by-step
instructions on moving / sharing / copying / backing-up customizations
including AutoText, AutoCorrect, keyboard assignments, toolbars, macros,
etc.
The way you are doing this now, each time your user starts his/her computer
normal.dot is being altered. Since there are other ways that normal.dot gets
altered by the user during the course of regular use (i.e. AutoText, styles)
your changes would be saved whenever one of the user alterations is saved.
Thus the template bloat.
--
Charles Kenyon
Word New User FAQ & Web Directory: http://addbalance.com/word
Intermediate User's Guide to Microsoft Word (supplemented version of
Microsoft's Legal Users' Guide) http://addbalance.com/usersguide
See also the MVP FAQ: http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/ which is awesome!
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Post by Ray HernandezThe reason to code the menu customizations in this matter is that they are
easier to maintain and to propagate thru the entire network. The
customization is done to words toolbar. If you were to manually make those
changes as you suggested and those changes are stored within normal.dot then
when a modification is propagated normal.dot would be replaced and any
customization by the user would be lost. We have tried several workaround
fixes and the best one that seems to resolve the issue of the ever expanding
normal.dot was to set the normal.dot already save to true, but the issue
there was that any user customizations would not be saved as well.
As to this bug surprising you, it surprised as well, Microsoft has
acknowledged it in KB873017.
As I previously mentioned the reason I believe that this VBA command is not
working properly is an Architectural issue in that if you create an object
with the same name it should overwrite a previously created object of that
same name, akin to explorer overwriting a file that you are copying
with
the
same name to a given folder. And therefore it would not force us to implement
the workaround of having to create and delete commandbars. The reason that,
that was a workaround was that unless you delete the created commandbar when
exiting Word, every time Word starts up and executes the global template
containing the VBA code that creates the menu items it creates a new
one
and
the previous one is still there as well.
Post by Charles KenyonDo you meet one of the two reasons I gave for making changes every
time?
If
not but there is another one that I missed (very possible) please illuminate
me.
I'm not aware of the bug you mention although it surprises me.
--
Charles Kenyon
Word New User FAQ & Web Directory: http://addbalance.com/word
Intermediate User's Guide to Microsoft Word (supplemented version of
Microsoft's Legal Users' Guide) http://addbalance.com/usersguide
See also the MVP FAQ: http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/ which is awesome!
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Post by Ray HernandezThe issue here is the use of the VBA Commandbar item, it does not matter
where the code lives as long as it is used within a global template,
the
bug
is within word where it automatically detects a change in the
Normal.dot
when
in reality none exist. The main problem that was been worked around by
programactically creating and then deleting the menu items is the abnormality
of the word logic that instead of replacing the same named instance
of
a
commandbar upon recreation word creatates another one and therefore
it
would
multiply infinitum. The issue here is that Microsoft needs to seriously
address this issue and resolve the problem. So the question to you guys
up
at
Microsoft is when can we expect a fix?
Post by Charles KenyonYour global.dot should have the changes you mention done once, with the
customization context being the global template.
The changes should be in place, then, each time the template is
loaded.
(It
is loaded when it is in the Startup folder.)
It does not make any changes to the normal.dot file at all.
There are two reasons I know of for making changes each time you load/unload
(1) The changes are different each time you load the file because
they
take
into account outside events or variables - that is, they are dynamic
changes.
(2) You have some other Add-In that is messing with your changes
after
the
file is loaded and you can't figure out how to block this.
Otherwise, just make your changes once, manually or using code, and leave
them alone. I have over 15 global .dot files loaded in Word, most
of
which
make a particular change to the interface. They work together quite well.
None of them makes the changes using code.
--
Charles Kenyon
Word New User FAQ & Web Directory: http://addbalance.com/word
Intermediate User's Guide to Microsoft Word (supplemented version of
Microsoft's Legal Users' Guide) http://addbalance.com/usersguide
See also the MVP FAQ: http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/ which is awesome!
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Post by Tito HarrisHi there,
Thanks for your replies. I believe I did not explain clearly
enough
what
is going on....
- I have a global.dot file in the Word startup folder that
contains
vba
macros.
- Replace the File, New... command (we have our own New Dialog because
we have more than 500 templates in our company)
- Adds a menu item in the menu Insert
- replaces the New icon in the standard toolbar (see above)
- When Word quits I restore the original state of the menubar and
standard
toolbar
So I am not sure what you mean when you write I should use a global
template instead of modifying the normal.dot file.
BTW... the normal.dot file increases by 5KB each time I quit Word.
Thanks for your continued help, Regards
tito
in
Post by Charles KenyonThe problem is in the Add-In, rather than in Word, itself. It
should
not
be making changes in normal.dot. If you have the ability to
change
this,
you should, as Suzanne suggested, have the changes made in a different
global template. If the changes are static, that is, they don't vary
depending on the other contents of your computer or other
factors,
they
can just be built into another global template once and not changed.
Otherwise, turn on the option to prompt before saving changes to
normal.dot and when prompted, say no. (This option should be on
all
the
time anyway.)
--
Charles Kenyon
Word New User FAQ & Web Directory: http://addbalance.com/word
Intermediate User's Guide to Microsoft Word (supplemented
version
of
Microsoft's Legal Users' Guide) http://addbalance.com/usersguide
See also the MVP FAQ: http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/ which is awesome!
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Post by Tito HarrisHi there,
When Word 2003 starts some Add-Ins that I programmed add commands
to
the
menubar and some custom toolbars are created. When Word ends I clean
them up (deleted).
In Word 2003 this can lead to a size increase in the normal.dot each
time word start/quits...
According to Microsoft KB: 873017 (Your Normal.dot file may
increase
in
file size when you quit Word 2003 if a Word-specific add-in that
contains a VBA macro is loaded when you start Word 2003) this is a
known
problem). Link
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;873017
Has this problem now been fixed with Office 2003 Service Pack 2
or
is
there any other hotfix for this problem available?
If no, how have others dealt with this issue?
TIA and Regards from Switzerland...
tito