Re: QDE (Quick Date Entry)

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From: hgrove (hgrove.1bx4hm_at_excelforum-nospam.com)
Date: 09/01/04 

Date: Wed, 1 Sep 2004 13:59:48 -0500

Having read the help file, qde.chm, it says your add-in adds code to
work*** class modules apparently by replacing Change and
SelectionChange event handlers. Uh, guys, you need to refresh your
understanding of systems programming. Since your add-in is manipulating
VBE objects, you *could* add *additional* procedures to work*** class
modules and *add* a statement to existing event handlers calling the
added procedures.

That said, it's buggy (or the documentation is inadequate).

Following your installation and usage instructions, I opened a new
workbook, and activated QDE in Sheet1 of that workbook, set Priority to
Day Priority checked Current Year, and specified A1:A10 as the date
entry range. With A1:A10 selected, I entered various numbers in these
cells. As I entered them, nothing changed (possibly because the
Selection didn't change though the ActiveCell moved through the
selected range). Once I finished entering them and moved though the
entry range with cursor keys, the entries changed to dates when each
cell was activated.

Here are my entries and the resulting dates (standard US).

Entry___Not Activated____Activated

__1____01/01/1900____12/31/1899
_10____01/10/1900____01/09/1900
_11____01/11/1900____01/10/1900
100____04/09/1900____04/09/1900
101____04/10/1900____04/10/1900
110____04/19/1900____04/19/1900
111____04/20/1900____04/20/1900
122____05/01/1900____05/01/1900
131____05/10/1900____05/10/1900
222____08/09/1900____08/09/1900

Doesn't match up with claimed functionality. Also, the fact that the
dates in A1:A3 display as one day before when those cells are the
active cell would be an indication there's an off-by-one bug somewhere
in the code.

I'm running XL97 SR-2 under Windows NT4 SP-6. 1900 date system.
mm/dd/yyyy default date format.

How many besides you 4 have *tested* this? If no others, then you've
got *BETA* stage software at best. You should include standard
beta-level warnings somewhere in your package.

Personally I don't find this sort of thing useful mostly because I
don't enter many dates. The vast bulk of what I work with comes from
network and online sources. For anyone with Access, they'd be better
off entering lots of dates in Access using date input masks. There may
even be freeware or cheap shareware lightweight databases with date
input mask features. What I'm getting at is that there may be little
need for a product such as this. After all, if the date entry cells
were formatted as Text, then it really is painless to convert entries
to dates with formulas only.

1 -> day of month in current month and year
11 -> ambiguous, either md, dm or dd in current month and year
111 -> ambiguous, either mmd, mdd, dmm or ddm
1111 -> ambiguous, either mmdd or ddmm (dmmy etc possible*)

anything longer would include years.

One point y'all may not have considered is that Excel most users would
enter dates in one and only one format. For the most part individual
users would never change their settings. Only resolution of ambiguous 2
and 3 digit partial dates would possibly differ between uses, and those
could also be handled purely by formula.

1 -> 1-Sep-2004
11 -> 11-Sep-2004
111 -> 11-Jan-2004
1111 -> 11-Nov-2004
=--IF(LEN(x)<=2,MONTH(NOW())&"-"&x,LEFT(x,
ROUNDDOWN(LEN(x)/2,0))&"-"&RIGHT(x,ROUNDUP(LEN(x)/2,0)))

1 -> 1-Sep-2004
11 -> 1-Jan-2004
111 -> 1-Nov-2004
1111 -> 11-Nov-2004
=--IF(LEN(x)=1,MONTH(TODAY())&"-"&x,LEFT(x,
ROUNDUP(LEN(x)/2,0))&"-"&RIGHT(x,ROUNDDOWN(LEN(x)/2,0)))

5 through 8 digit entries would also best be handled by inserting
dashes between groups of 1 or 2 numerals then using -- on the resulting
string to convert to date numbers.

While I appreciate you all spent some time & effort on this, it just
doesn't seem to merit a +500KB add-in that can't coexist with
preexisting Change and SheetChange event handlers. 

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