Product Guide for Total Visual CodeTools
Thank you for your interest in Total Visual CodeTools for Microsoft
Visual Basic 6 (VB6), Office/Access/Excel, and VBA! We are pleased
to provide you with this Reviewer’s Guide to assist you in your
evaluation of this exciting new version of our award-winning code
development tool set. The contents of this document are organized as
follows:
Additional documentation is included with the Total Visual CodeTools
product, including a 166 page printed User’s Guide and online help system. A
free demo is available to experience how the product
works in your projects.
Writing Better Code—writing error-free and maintainable code—is
hard work. It requires a full time commitment to covering all the
details. Total Visual CodeTools provides a robust set of tools to
help developers in the day-to-day development of Visual Basic (VB6)
and Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) code.
Total Visual CodeTools makes it easier for developers to:
- Write solid code
- Reduce the drudgery of common coding tasks
- Clean up inherited code and standardize existing code
- Rename variables to your naming convention
- Create maintainable code
- Find unused variables, constants, classes, user defined types, etc.
- Add sophisticated error handling and line numbering to pinpoint crashes
- Deliver code that is more difficult to decipher
The main features of Total Visual CodeTools are:
Code Builders
A set of code builders that create new code using simple point and click
forms. All generated code adheres to the standards you define.
Code Cleanup
Modifies existing code to standardize visual style, indenting, error
handling, commenting, naming conventions and more. Works according to the
styles and conventions you define.
Code Delivery
Prepares your code base for distribution in non-compiled environments.
For example, applications distributed with Microsoft Office applications are
not compiled to EXE files, making it easy to break into source code. Code
Delivery obfuscates and compacts code to make it run faster and more secure.
Unused Variable Analysis
Find unused variables, constants, procedure parameters, classes, and user
defined types that are defined but never used.
Coding Tools
A variety of tools to make writing code in the Visual Basic/Office IDE
easier such as the keystroke macro recorder.
Enterprise Standards Management
Your organization’s standards for error handling, commenting, variable
naming conventions, and visual style can be centrally managed and enforced
across your entire development group.
"Total Visual CodeTools is by far my favorite third-party
product." - Alison Balter, Author, Conference Speaker, Instructor
"An amazing time saver. Completely customizable procedures, comments,
and error handlers at the push of a button. At least a dozen other helpful
development utilities. I don't know how I managed without it." --
Rob Bovey, MCSE, MCSD Application Professionals
"Return on investment can be measured in days - our developers
write better quality code, adhering to our corporate standards, from
day one - even in the prototypes." -- Ola Strandberg, Chief
Technology Officer, Sweden
"One of the things I like about Total Visual CodeTools is that
I can set it up to do all the standard work when creating a new
procedure. I set it up once and I get all the standard information
and error routines that I want and I can concentrate on writing
better code. I sometimes wonder why it is called Microsoft Access
and not FMS Access they write much better development tools." --
Hugo Pedersen, Denmark
"I have to maintain and enhance code from a variety of sources.
Total Visual CodeTools lets me do this with a minimum of effort.
It's cleanup feature has saved me hours of frustration dealing with
poorly formatted code. It's also great for maintaining a consistent
format across multiple developers. It's an absolutely wonderful
product." -- Travis Gibson, Cumberland, WI
"Total Visual CodeTools is one of the essential development tools that I use on a daily
basis. The procedure and property builders have helped me establish and maintain
consistent names and code formats throughout my project while also saving me
time by handling many of the tedious parts of coding. This tool makes it easy to
adhere to the coding standards you've set for your projects. The improvements in
the latest version are wonderful. Good Job!" -- Sandra Daigle, Microsoft MVP,
Cleveland, TN
"It's hard to imagine many Access developers who couldn't
benefit from this compendium of coding tools." -- Paul Litwin,
Smart Access
"Finally!
Someone has come up with a tool that actually helps you write
code for your Access applications!" -- Craig
Bobchin, Access/VB Advisor
For the Developer
- Total Visual CodeTools inserts comment blocks whenever you write
new code, or on existing applications. Comments are completely
configurable and support token expansion for the easy insertion of
real-time data such as date, developer, modifications, etc. Never,
ever, write another block of commenting code. Of course, no
application can write meaningful comments--only you can do that. But
Total Visual CodeTools can take care of the grunt work.
- Total Visual CodeTools can insert the error handling you define
into every new piece of code you write, or add it to existing
procedures that lack error handling. You have complete control over
how the error handling works, and you can even define different
error handling templates for standard modules, class modules, and
form/report modules.
- Total Visual CodeTools adds variable naming conventions to code
as you write it, and can add tags to existing code. You define the
tags for you variable types and Total Visual CodeTools takes care of
the rest.
- Total Visual CodeTools includes many tools to write new code
with just a few mouse clicks. Need to create a new procedure? Simply
open the New Procedure Builder, type in a procedure name and press
OK. Total Visual CodeTools automatically builds the procedure with
naming conventions, error handling, and commenting, and inserts it
directly into your project! Total Visual CodeTools also has builders
for creating ADO and DAO recordsets, converting SQL strings to code,
copying event code from one control to another, visually creating
message boxes, and simplifying the use of commands like Select Case,
Format, and DateDiff.
- Total Visual CodeTools cleans up existing code with ease. Simply
select a procedure, module, specific modules, or you entire project,
specify your standards, and Go. You have complete control over all
visual style settings, error handling, naming conventions, and
commenting. Clean up an entire application in minutes.
- Total Visual CodeTools provides the Code Delivery tool as the
final step to code deployment. For applications that must ship
source code (like Excel), Code Delivery strips all whitespace and
renames variables to meaningless names. The result is a smaller
application that is harder to break into and decipher. Additionally,
Code Delivery gives you the option to add line numbers to your
application--perfect for having your error handler report the exact
line of code where a failure occurs.
- Total Visual CodeTools works as an add-in in Visual Basic 6 as
well as all Office/VBA programming environments. Simply select the
tool you need from our toolbar or menu. Total Visual CodeTools
understands the Microsoft IDE and can directly read and write code
without the need for exports.
For the Enterprise
One of the most important features of Total Visual CodeTools is its
ability to manage development standards for single developers,
project teams, and an entire enterprise. As projects become more
complex, and entail greater staffing requirements, the need for
standards in development becomes crucial.
Total Visual CodeTools tackles this problem by offering a powerful and
flexible architecture for managing your standards.
- As a single developer, you can use Total Visual CodeTools to ensure
that all your projects conform to the development standards dictated by
the project. With support for multiple standards templates, you can
customize standards according to a specific client’s needs, or a
particular project’s requirements.
- As a team or enterprise developer, Total Visual CodeTools standards
allow you to develop projects without worrying about whether or not you
are conforming to the defined project standard.
- As a development manager, you now have a tool to define development
standards, and enforce them among entire project teams.
Code Cleanup is one of the most powerful features of Total Visual
CodeTools. Code Cleanup standardizes the code in your project to
your specifications. Add error handling to procedures that lack it,
standardize code indentations, apply your variable naming
convention, insert comment structures, sort procedures, and many
other powerful features and more. The result is code that is more
readable, robust, and maintainable.
As a software developer, chances are you occasionally inherit code
from someone else that does not meet your coding standards making it
very difficult to read much less maintain and enhance. Given tight
deadlines and time constraints, even your own code may have
inconsistent indentation, naming conventions, and comment
structures, along with procedures without error handling and other
problems. Trying to fix this manually is extremely time consuming
and error prone.
The Code Cleanup tool addresses these problems by applying
consistent formatting, adding error handling to procedures that lack
it, and other features to any or all of your modules.
Visual Style
Standardizing the visual appearance of the code is probably the
single most important factor for code maintainability. Choosing this
option tells Code Cleanup to do the following:
- Standardize Code Indentation to a specified width with automatic
indentation for programming constructs such as IF..ELSE..ENDIF,
DO..LOOP, WITH..END WITH, etc.
- Split multiple lines on one line separated by colons into
separate lines
- Split single line If statements into separate lines with a
closing End If.
- Split Dim statements for multiple variables on one line into
separate lines.
- Standardize number of blank lines between procedures
- Standardize maximum consecutive blank lines.
Procedure Sorting
Procedures can be inserted in any order in VB/VBA. This may be
good, but it can also create a mess. Code Cleanup makes it easy to
sort the procedures in your modules including property statements in
class modules.
Module Comments
Add a standard module header to the top of each module such as a
project name, creation dates, copyright notices, and ownership
rights. A complete list of all procedure names and procedure
definitions can also be added.
Procedure Comments
Add comment headers to each procedure. Although the program cannot
determine what the code is actually doing and write the comments for
you, it can take much of the drudgery out of the process of creating
consistent comment headers for each procedure.
Property Comments
Inserts the specified property comment template into all the
property procedures.
Error Handling
Error handling is one of the key attributes of robust applications.
This feature inserts error handling code into your procedures that
lack error handling, and allows you to specify separate error
handling routines for regular modules vs. class modules. Error
handling can also be added in a way to be automatically updated in
the future.
Variable Naming Conventions
Rename your existing variables to conform to naming conventions
based on the variable type (Integer, String, etc.). Every variable
is given a prefix or suffix identifying its type with additional
options for global and module level variables.
Option Explicit
Insert "Option Explicit" into the declarations section of every
module that lacks it. One of the cardinal rules of writing reliable
and maintainable code is to explicitly declare all of your
variables. By adding "Option Explicit" to your module, you are
telling Access to require variable declaration.
Remove Line Numbers
Removes the line numbers in your code. This is useful if line
numbers were added to your code (say with the Code Delivery
feature), and you now want to remove it.
Code Delivery provides the tools for the final preparation of
your code before distribution. Easily add line numbers to all of
your code so you can take advantage of VB/VBA’s ability to pinpoint
the exact line where an error occurs. You can also obfuscate your
code for situations where you need to distribute your source code,
but are concerned about its misuse. Code Delivery provides the
following code operations:
- Line Numbering adds line numbers to every line of code. With
this, if your error handler uses the ERL function, it can detect the
exact line where a crash occurs
- Variable Scrambling lets you rename all your variables,
constants, user defined types, and enum to nonsense names that
another user would have great difficulty deciphering. An option is
available to not modify public variables
- Remove Comments removes all your comments. There is a way to not
delete certain comments if they are tagged
- Remove Blank Lines removes all blank lines
- Remove Indentations makes your code flush left
- Remove Debug Statements removes this debugging code
- Remove Stop statements removes stop commands
Example...
As one writes code, variables are often created but not used or
old code deleted without deleting the corresponding variable
declaration. Total Visual CodeTools’ Unused Variable Analysis helps
you detect and eliminate unnecessary code from your project. Not
only does it make your code more compact, the analysis may highlight
problems where you thought the code should be doing or tracking
something that it is not.
The Unused Variable feature finds more than just variables:
- Variables defined with Dim, Public, Private, Static, etc.
- Procedure parameters
- Constants
- Classes that are not referenced
- User defined types (Type..End Type syntax)
- User defined type elements
The Unused Variable Analysis is based on the scope you specify: one
procedure, one module, multiple modules, or the entire project.
Is it Important to Eliminate Unused Variables?
Getting rid of unused variables may seem like a waste of time. If it’s
unused, why bother, since it’s not hurting anything? In a world with
pressure to just get code to work, rather than “perfection”, it may seem
unnecessary to worry about unused variables.
However, reviewing and eliminating unused variables can be helpful for
many reasons:
- Eliminating unnecessary code makes your remaining code smaller,
easier to maintain, and more readable
- Unused variables may indicate bigger problems. For instance, you
created a variable and intended for it to do something but never
implemented it. Discovering that it’s unused may require a fix to
implement it rather than delete the variable.
- Unused procedure parameters (excluding mandatory parameters for
event procedures) often indicate a bug. The procedure is allowing
different values to be passed to the parameter, but its behavior never
changes. Either get rid of the parameter or have it do what it’s
supposed to do.
By running the Unused Variable Analysis feature on a regular basis,
you’ll keep your code cleaner and apply Best Practices to your coding
skills.
More Details...
Total Visual CodeTools provides several useful builders for your
day-to-day development efforts. While developing code for VB6 and
VBA, there are many operations that are tedious and error-prone.
Total Visual CodeTools builders allow you to automate and simplify
these processes. The following builders are available in Total
Visual CodeTools:
New Procedure Builder
Use the New Procedure Builder to quickly create new procedures with
the custom commenting and error handling structure you want. Simply
type in a procedure name, set the options you want, and press [OK].
Code is automatically generated so you can insert it directly into
your project. Easily create consistent, professional procedures.
Details...
Recordset Builder
One of Total Visual CodeTools most powerful tools, the Recordset
Builder, makes creating recordset code a snap. Point to any Access
database or DSN data source such as SQL Server, select your table or
query/view, and you're ready to go. Easily create ADO or DAO code
with all its connection and recordset code. Quickly generate code to
browse, add, or edit your records.
Details...
Long Text/SQL Builder
Many developers consider the Long Text / SQL Builder to be
the most commonly used feature within Total Visual CodeTools.
It's a very common need to convert SQL text from a query and
assign it to a variable in your VB6/VBA code. But it's a real
pain to manage issues like quotes inside quotes, word-wrapping,
and formatting the text. Details...
The Long Text / SQL Builder handles
these issues for your SQL strings or any text that you want to convert to a
variable assignment. Simply paste your text in the top box, and it is
automatically assigned to a variable and word-wrapped according to your
settings. Our SQL parser understands SQL strings and can wrap SQL on key words
like FROM, WHERE, GROUP BY, etc. to make it much more readable:
Message Box Builder
Use the Message Box Builder to graphically create message box
statements. Enter the text you want to display in the title and body
of the message box. Easily select button combinations and icons,
while handling return values. You can even specify a help file and
context ID.
Select Case Builder
Something as simple as a Select Case statement should not be hard!
Use the Select Case builder to quickly create multi-branching
statements. Simply type in your variable name and test expressions
and Total Visual CodeTools generates the code for you. Options let
you specify the addition of an Else statement, formatting styles,
and assigning a number to a new variable.
Copy Control Code Builder
When creating forms and reports, you can copy and paste a
control but the code behind it does not get duplicated. For
instance, if a combo box for the same list is on more than one
form, chances are its events are similar if not identical.
Duplicating controls in one form or report object, or copying
it between objects can be quite a pain and error prone.
The Copy Control Code Builder duplicates all the event
procedures of one control to another in the same object or
another. The procedure names are automatically updated to the
new control's name along with references to the original name in
the events. Use the Copy Control Code Builder to increase your
productivity and accuracy.
New Property Procedure Builder
When writing classes, use the New Property Procedure Builder to
quickly create new Property Let/Get/Set procedures. Simply type in a
property name, the data type, and whether to create Get, Let and/or
Set statements. Specify the scope, and add your comment and error
handling structures. You can even create a variable to hold the
property value, which is created using your variable naming
convention and added to the General Declarations section of your
class.
Format Builder
The VB6/VBA Format function allows you to customize the way values
are displayed and printed. Unfortunately, it's difficult to remember
all the arguments and syntax for this function. The Format Builder
makes it simple to format expressions for numbers, currency,
date/time, and strings. Use the formats we've provided or add your
own. Select the options from the list and see how it is applied to
your sample data. No more trial and error in the Immediate Window!
Date Difference Builder
The VB6/VBA DateDiff function calculates the time between two
specified date/times. Unfortunately, it is difficult to remember the
syntax and arguments of the function. The DateDiff Builder creates
code to calculate date and time differences in years, quarters,
months, weeks, days, weekdays, hours, minutes, seconds, and more.
Set the options, put in your sample date/times, and see the results.
In addition to Builders, Cleanup and Deliver, Total Visual
CodeTools offers additional tools to help your coding work.
- Macro Recorder: This utility increases your productivity
and accuracy by recording your keystrokes to reduce repetitive
typing. (Details)
- Close Code Windows: This tool makes it easy to clean your
development environment of code windows.
- Clear Immediate Window: This tool makes it simple to
clear the content of the Immediate window.
- Block Commenter: This utility provides a better option to
comment your code.
- VBE Color Schemes: A tool that helps to visually organize
the appearance of your Visual Basic Editor.
Enterprise Standards Management
Total Visual CodeTools uses Standards to define how your projects
are created and updated. Standards define things like naming
conventions, commenting style, and error handling. In order to use
Standards effectively, it is important to understand the Standards
architecture employed in the product.
Types of Settings
Total Visual CodeTools uses two types of settings to control how
the product works and how standards are enforced.
- Shared Standards are the settings that are used throughout
the Total Visual CodeTools tool set. These control development
standards that can be shared by an entire team. Shared standards
are stored in a central shared location so each developer using
Total Visual CodeTools can seamlessly connect to the Standards
repository and use the elements defined there. For example,
naming conventions, commenting style, and error handling
settings are Shared Standards. All Shared Standards are set and
managed from the Total Visual CodeTools Standards form. This
enterprise feature is extremely helpful in maintaining
consistent coding styles across your development team, and is
particularly effective for new members of your team or junior
programmers.
- Local Settings are the settings that are assigned to a
specific tool or developer and are unique to each installation
of Total Visual CodeTools. These options are set by the
developer from a specific tool’s form. For example, the
procedure type setting in the New Procedure Builder is an option
that shouldn’t be controlled centrally--it is up to the
developer each time the tool is used. Another example would be
the developer’s initials used when generating comments. Local
Settings are stored in the Windows Registry on the computer
running Total Visual CodeTools and are therefore private to that
developer.
How Settings are Created
Total Visual CodeTools stores all Shared Standards in one or more
Shared Standards files. When you first install the product, a
default file is created in your Application Data folder. This file
contains reasonable defaults--if you are a single developer and want
to get started right away, the default settings will most likely be
appropriate.
You can modify any Shared Standards to match your development style
and standards. Additionally, you can save multiple settings in
multiple Shared Standards files. This is helpful if you are working
on several projects with different standards.
Finally, you can place a Shared Standards file on a shared network
drive and have all installations of Total Visual CodeTools use this
file. Because this file can be password protected, you can define
and protect standards from undesirable modification.
Shared Setting Scenarios
The Total Visual CodeTools Shared Standards architecture is
designed to be both easy to use and flexible. This section contains
the information you need to get up and running in multiple
situations.
Single Developer, Single Project
If you are a single developer using Total Visual CodeTools on a
single project, you can start using the product immediately with the
default Standards settings. However, it is worth the time to review
the default values and adjust them according to your needs.
Single Developer, Multiple Projects
If you are a single developer working on multiple projects, you can
use multiple Shared Standards files to accommodate the different
requirements for each project. For example, you have a client who
requires a particular type of commenting, while another requires a
specific error handling format.
Multiple Developers, Connected to the Same Network
In this scenario, you have multiple developers who are connected to
the same network or shared drive. Each developer has an installation
of Total Visual CodeTools and you want to configure Shared Standards
so every developer uses the same settings. To accomplish this, you
must first configure the Shared Standards file, and then configure
each installation of Total Visual CodeTools to use the same Shared
Standards file.
Working in Disconnected Environments
Having all developers working with Total Visual CodeTools using a
shared settings file is a great concept. But what happens when a
developer disconnects his or her computer from the network?
Developers often go offsite with mobile computers. What happens to
the connection to the settings file in such a case?
To handle this scenario, Total Visual CodeTools automatically
checks at startup to see if its connection to the Shared Settings
file is available. If not, it automatically switches to a local
copy. This means that Total Visual CodeTools can be used even when
disconnected from a Shared Settings file located on a shared drive.
The next time the disconnected developer connects to the shared drive
and starts Total Visual CodeTools, the program automatically
reconnects to the Shared Settings file on the shared drive.
Note that if you have assigned a settings file to the Shared
Settings file, and a developer is working in disconnected mode, the
developer will not be able to change any settings--this is the
design of password protection. However, the developer, who may be at
a remote site, may need to change certain settings in response to
project requirements. In such a case, the developer can clear the
password on his or her local copy using the Save As feature. See the
following section on Password Protection for more information.
Managing Shared Settings Files
This section covers the management aspects of Shared Standards
files, including password-protection, making backups, and restoring
defaults.
Password-Protecting Shared Standards Files
In order to protect against unwanted changes to your standards, you
can assign a password to Shared Standards files. By assigning a
password, you are restricting certain values in the Standards form
to be read-only, unless you have a password. This is not so much a
security feature as it is a convenience feature. Even if you assign
a password to a Shared Settings file, there is nothing to stop a
developer from point to any other (non-password-protected) settings
file. Instead, the password-protection feature is designed to
prevent developers from making unintentional changes to the team or
enterprise standards already defined.
Making Backups of Shared Standards Files
Because Shared Standards files contain a lot of information,
recreating them manually in the event of a system failure would be a
time-consuming process. To prevent this from happening, it is a good
idea to make backups of your Shared Standards files. To do this,
simply copy any .CTS files to your backup media.
Restoring Defaults
At any time, you can restore the current Shared Settings file to
its default values by pressing the [Defaults] button at the bottom
of the Standards form. Because this action overwrites any current
values, you should use the [Save As] button (under Manage Settings)
to save your current settings before restoring defaults.
Total Visual CodeTools has the same system requirements as that of
the host product:
- 16 MB of free disk space to install the product
(additional disk space may be necessary on a temporary basis
while running the program, depending on the complexity of
your modules).
- Visual Basic 6.0 or a VBA host such as Microsoft
Office/Access/Excel.
Total Access CodeTools version 8.0 is available for Access 97
databases. Contact FMS for information about pricing and
availability.
Product Packaging and Technical Support
Total Visual CodeTools ships electronically and includes extensive,
context sensitive online help. You can also get a CD and
professionally printed 166 page user’s manual shipped to you.
Technical support is available by phone, fax,
email, and through our
newsgroups.
Licensing and Pricing
Total Visual CodeTools is licensed on a per developer seat basis. A
single license is $299 and a 5-pack is $899. Owners of previous
versions can upgrade for $199. Total Visual CodeTools is also part
of FMS’ family of suites, including: Total Visual Developer Suite,
Total VB Enterprise Suite, Total Access Developer Suite, and Total
Access Ultimate Suite.
While developing code for Visual Basic 6 and VBA, there are many
operations that are tedious and error-prone. Total Visual CodeTools
allows developers to automate and simplify these processes. With its
rich set of enterprise-enabled coding tools, Total Visual CodeTools
increases productivity and allows an entire development team to
share a consistent set of standards and rules.
Thank you again for taking the time to review Total Visual
CodeTools. We invite you put the product through its paces,
and contact us if we can provide any additional assistance in
evaluating or deploying Total Visual CodeTools.
