Re: Macro control of Gnumeric?

[Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>]

On Mon, 21 Mar 2005, Jim Martin wrote:

> Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2005 21:56:02 -0700
> From: Jim Martin <jim martin utah edu>
> To: gnumeric-list gnome org
> Subject: Macro control of Gnumeric?
>
> Hello All:
>
> First, let me thank all of you who contribute to the Gnumeric project. I
> have been using the pre-compiled version of 1.4.3 RC1 for windows and it
> works on my toughest spreadsheets.

Glad gnumeric works well for you (but if you have any problems please do
help out by filing bug reports in bugzilla and attaching sample documents
to your reprotse sure to provide

> I have searched the Gnumeric manual and the archives of this list and found
> very little regarding macro control.

Searching based on the word "Macro" might be part of the reason you aren't
finding much as similar functionality is often described as scripting.
Searching the for the term Python might also turn up more results (as
Gnumeric can be scriped using the Python programing language).

I also usualy try using Google site:mail.gnome.org rather than using the
built in search provided by the mailing list archives.

> In fact, the most relevant post I found was from July of 2001 and the
> reply (by Jody) suggested that macros were something to be added.

If you make the effort of finding out this for yourself (and we
appreaciate users who do) be sure to include a link/reference so we can
refresh our memories and not repeat what has already been said.

I expect that post mentioned the difficulty of adding something like Macro
recording and that writing small scripts would probably be required.

> As far as I can tell from the archives that has not happened yet (please
> correct me if I missed it). I do see several references to Python, which
> appears to be a scripting language. However, I am not a programmer of
> scripts, more of a "record a macro and then modify it" type.

You dont give yourself enough credit, that sounds like programming to me.
If you can tell us what kind of problems you are trying to solve (as
well as the specific functionality you want in a script to try and help
you solve that problem) we might be able to recommend existing scripts or
possibly even improve how Gnumeric behaves.

> Sorry for rambling on. I guess my question is this: If I move to Linux,
> will I be able to control Gnumeric with something like the macros I
> currently use in windows.

If you can explain what the macros you had were for there might be people
willing to help out providing alternatives.  If they are very simple and
you can show us the BASIC source code of the script maybe someone will
be interested in trying to rewrite them in python.  I dont want to get
your hopes up but there isn't much harm is explaining the problems and
seeing if people have ideas on how we might be able to solve them.

> Thanks,
>
> Jim

Thanks for using Gnumeric.

Sincerely

Alan Horkan
http://advogato.org/person/AlanHorkan/

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