Add Spreadsheets, Charting to Programs with Ease

Rick Grehan

Building-block-style programming just got easier, thanks to new OLE custom controls (OCXes) from Visual Components (Lenexa, KS). The company's embeddable spreadsheet, graphing, word processing, and spelling-checking controls work with Visual Basic, Visual C++, and other OCX-supported programming environments. I used two members of that group, the Formula One spreadsheet control and the First Impression charting control, with Visual Basic 4.0.

Formula One provides an easy way to add spreadsheet capabilities to your application. From Visual Basic 4.0's tool menu, you select Custom Controls, click on the Formula One checkbox, select OK, and the Formula One button app ears on the toolbar. Click on the Formula One button, drag open a frame on your form, and you have a spreadsheet.

Formula One reads Excel 7-compatible files (i.e., XLS files). It also reads tab-delimited text files and Formula One's own spreadsheet format. The interface is much like Excel's; it even provides a tabbed workbook interface for handling multiple worksheets. I built a quick test program using Formula One that loaded a rather large (245 KB on disk) Excel spreadsheet from a previous BYTE Lab project. During this test, I learned that Formula One can't handle "array-style" formulas. I discovered that it also doesn't support pivot tables or solver equations.

Formula One's best feature is its workbook designer. Launched from the right-button-activated menu from within Visual Basic 4.0, the designer is a fully operative Formula One spreadsheet. However, when you change the spreadsheet in the workbook designer by adjusting the column width , fonts, or other attributes, your mod ifications are reflected in the spreadsheet that you've embedded in your Visual Basic 4.0 form. The workbook designer provides a handy way to adjust the look of the spreadsheet that you will embed in your application.

First Impression lets you add numerous charting options to your application. You can enter and update your data in First Impression's graphical data grid or establish a link to the Formula One control for graphing data in a worksheet or workbook. In the latter scenario, an OCX is embedded in an OCX that's embedded in a Visual Basic application. And I couldn't tell where one component ended and the other began.

First Impression provides numerous chart styles, including polar charts, 3-D surfaces with gradients, and others. First Impression's photo-realistic rendering engine lets you adjust 3-D light sources and ambient lighting to create impressive plots.

The OCXes from Visual Components ((800) 884-8665 or (913) 599-6500; fax (913) 599-6597; sales@visualcomp.com; http://www.visualcomp.com ) cost $249 (except VisualSpeller, which costs $149). Each package includes 16- and 32-bit OCXes. Visual Basic custom control (VBX) equivalents cost $149 ($99 for VisualSpeller).

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Simultaneously Formatting Changes with Formula One

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When you adjust the width of a worksheet column in Formula One's workbook designer, you similarly change the appearance of the spreadsheet you will embed in your application.