MS Office Interface for HTBasic v2.1 (Demo) Readme File ========================================================= (c) Copyright Tech Soft GmbH, 1998-2007. All rights reserved. Last update: 14-May-2007 This file contains the latest information about the MS Office Interface for HTBasic Demo Release. Please read carefully BEFORE you install the software. The MS Office Interface for HTBasic Demo is free software and may be used by any number of users on any number of systems without fee or obligation, subject only to the terms and conditions laid out in the license.txt file. Distribution ------------ If you want to order to full version of the MS Office Interface for HTBasic you can buy it from the following HTBasic distributors: Country Company Website ------------------------------------------------------------------------- USA TransEra www.HTBasic.com Germany Tech Soft www.HTBasic.de (worldwide distribution) France Bourbaky www.HTBasic.fr UK TC.COM www.technical-computing.com Denmark Brouwers www.brouwers.dk Japan i2net www.i2net.co.jp/eng Special notes for the demo version ---------------------------------- The latest demo version can be downloaded from http://www.TechSoft.de/mso The programming functionality of demo version is not limited. However, some limitations apply: - Source code of the high level user library "htbdde.lib" is protected - A "demo" dialog box will be displayed from time to time - We only provide limited support for the demo version - The pdf manual contains the watermark "Demo version" System requirements ------------------- The MS Office Interface for HTBasic is designed to run on Windows 9x, Windows Me and Windows NT/2000/XP/2003. It is an add-on library for HTBasic for Windows and does not run as a standalone application. HTBasic for Windows 8.X / 9.X is fully supported. Older HTBasic versions can be used with limitations. Under Windows 9x a minimum of 16MB RAM is recommended. Windows Me/NT/2000 requires 64MB of RAM, 128 MB RAM is recommended. Windows XP requires 128 MB, Windows 2003 requires 512 MB RAM. Approximately 10 MB of free disk space is required in order to install the files. Example Programs ---------------- After the installation you will find several example programs in the EXAMPLES directory. These example programs demonstrates concepts for Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Access, Corel Quattro Pro / WordPerfect, the Windows Program Manager, Internet Explorer and Pegasus Mail. Please note that Release 2.1 comes with new specialized examples for Microsoft Office 2007. If you are using Microsoft Office 2007 you should only use the examples from the directory "MS Office 2007". If you are using Microsoft Office 2007 we strongly recommend that you read the MS Office 2007 instructions in the Online help (Appendix C) file carefully before you use this software. The example programs can be used as follows: - Start HTBasic for Windows - If not yet configured long filenames, enter the following command: CONFIGURE LONGFILENAMES ON - Select the option "Change MSI on Open" in the File menu of HTBasic. - In HTBasic, Select "File -> Open..." and go to the examples directory (e.g. "c:\Program Files\Tech Soft\BASICDDE2\Examples\MS Office") - LOAD the desired example program, e.g. "Excel.prg" - Start the example program (RUN) - Follow the instructions on the screen Online Documentation -------------------- The fully hyper-linked online help file can be used instead of the printed manual. List of new features and fixes since last release ------------------------------------------------- 14-May-2007 ** NEW VERSION 2.10.033 ** - Compatibility with MS Office 2007 * New example and framework programs for MS Office 2007 * New Access 2007 database template_2007.accdb * Excel 2007: Removed disfunctional code due to Microsoft bugs * FNDde_openfile now compatible with Excel 2007 - Added document detection for Office 2007 documents: New FNDde_store_ftype, will be called from: FNDde_openfile, FNDde_savefile, FNDde_closefile FNDde_ren_xlsheet, FNDde_insert_pict - Revised examples (Word, Excel, Access) - Fixes for FNDde_xls_2_starr and FNDde_xls_2_array - New example: Excel4.prg (demonstrates document protection) - FNDde_savefile: Now explicitely saves Word document type - Online help much enhanced (better function documentation, enhanced index functions) - FNDde_openfile: Microsoft Files can be opened ReadOnly - New function: FNDde_xl_emptycel$ - New example program Excel3.prg (shows usage of FNDde_xl_emptycel$) - New cell range limits in FNDde_celrange_ok: Col=256 Row=65536 - Some fixes and additions in pdf manual 09-May-2006 ** Hotfix v2.0.1 R1b ** - FNXls_2_array and FNXls_2_starr fixed (functions failed if Excel cells were empty) 02-May-2006 **** New release 2.0 with a lot of great new features **** - Added support for CONFIGURE DIM OFF - Huge performance optimizations: Data transfers up to 70,000 items per second - Completely new program library "htbdde.lib" with more than 50 new functions - Excel languages: English, German, French, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese - Completely rewritten, easier to understand example programs - Heavily updated help file and completely new manual - Detects the Windows locale (regional settings) automatically 26-Oct-2004 - New revision 1.30.25 - Updated help file (new commands for Excel, Word), updated pdf manual - sligthly enhanced example programs, most notably in skeleton folder 27-Jan-2004 - Online help and manual updated in order to reflect new commands for Excel. 06-Jan-2004 - The Windows 3.1x installer has been removed from the archive. Windows 3.1x is no longer officially supported. - New directory structure for example programs. Several categories added. - Completely overhauled example programs for MS Excel, Word and Access. - The help file has been heavily updated. Many new DDE commands for Word and Excel have been added. - The message box indicating that you are running an evaluation version will be shown less frequently. 10-Dec-2001 - Enhanced example programs for Excel: Now supports Dutch language - Full Windows XP support 14-Jun-2001 - Better error handling on low memory conditions - product now ships on CD 01-Mar-2001 - Internal handling of channel numbers enhanced (only affects users who use more than 32767 connections in their programs.) 14-Feb-2001 - new release 1.20 - Updated help file: * Appendix A: List of useful DDE commands updated (DdeExcel, DdeAccess) * Chapter 4: New example program "ddeaccs3.bas" - New example program "ddeaccs3.bas" for Microsoft Access - Updated example programs for MS Excel: now supports french Excel versions 02-May-2000: - Ddeinfo function repaired. In some very rare cases the return string used for this function could cause memory errors. - Example program ddeexcl2.bas corrected (Ddeinfo$ initialization) - DdeConnect function updated (waste of ressources). This has been never reported as a problem by the customers. It has been found during our normal code quality checks. In very rare cases (really never happened in real life) this ressource problem could cause the DdeConnect function to fail if there were thousands of open DDE connections. 22-Mar-2000: - DdePoke function now can handle up to 32767 bytes for the transfer (formerly the limit was about 4096 characters) 11-Feb-2000: - Help File updated. New DDE commands added for Textpad and UltraEdit32. 02-Feb-2000: - Support for HTBasic 8.X added (new CSUB, example programs modified) 02-Dec-1999: - Fixes on example programs: ddeexcel.bas, ddequat7.bas 12-Oct-1999: - DdePoke memory leak repaired. After calling this function more than about 3000 times it failed. This has been repaired. 29-Jul-1999: - DdeRequest functionality expanded: Now this function can handle string arrays. Now you can even transfer very large data structures within a few seconds into BASIC for Windows. This new feature is especially useful for data request from big database applications like Microsoft Access and expands the focus of the product even more to professional database applications. A new example program "ddeaccs2.bas" has been added in order to demonstrate how the functionality can be used. - Helpfile and manual have been updated. New manual: Fourth Revision. 20-Jul-1999: - DdeRequest could crash BASIC for Windows if the returned data exceeded the string length of HTBasic (32767). This has been fixed now. DdeRequest will return an error if the requested data exceeds the limit of 32762 bytes. 15-Jul-1999: - Example program "DDEACCES.BAS" corrected (bug in error handling) - Help file updated 20-May-1999: - New example programs for Corel WordPerfect 7.0 and Quattro Pro 7.0 17-Mar-1999: - New Timeout function: DdeTimeout(Tvalue, Result)