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overview of adv processing

Advanced processing should include some recipe type sections that go through the more advanced aspects of working up VBA code.

This could focus on:

  • Speed improvements and how to do it (disable screen, events, calculation) and how to undo it
  • Working with arrays of values instead of outputting a cell at a time
  • Cranking through an entire automated workflow without user interaction: creating new workbooks, worksheets, charts, formulas and then outputting it all to PDF
  • Focus on the interplay of manual steps and code (sometimes you have to run part of the code to see what to do next; other times you can sit down and type the whole thing out)
  • Cleaning up macro recorder code (some discussion about what works well/doesn't)
  • How to avoid Select and why
  • Using DoEvents to wait a set amount of time
  • Using Application.OnWait (?) to do some thing at a regular time
  • Parsing through existing formulas or values and manipulating with confidence
  • Reading and writing to external files
  • Working with the file system to do some processing
  • Running through a folder or batch of files and doing something with each one
  • Structuring code in a way that the different pieces can be called on their own
  • Going through a workflow that involves using other office products
  • Strategy for identifying cells using Styles and working through them; effectively a tag feature

The long list of sections here says that maybe there is enough code to put together a couple of "case study" type things that break down the development of an entire workflow. This could related to charting/processing or some other thing.

TODO: consider going through StackOverflow answers to see what the most common slightly advanced topics are that come up