Andrew of Andrew’s Excel Tips fame created a utility add-in that’s available for download. It’s a nice set of utilities and I particularly like the right-click menu option – my preferred way of doing most things that don’t have a keyboard shortcut. I do, however, have a few comments for the next version.
- The conversion functions need BeginGroup bars to break them up a little. I would suggest grouping by linear, area, weight, and temperature. It would be just a bit more visually pleasing.
- Some utilities that I would expect to produce errors don’t. For instance, if I want to hide the active sheet of a one sheet workbook, I would get an error that at least one sheet must be visible. With this utility, I get no error and nothing happens. I think it would be nice to tell the user why nothing happened.
- Under the Worksheet utilities, the Select to First Column and Select to Final Column do the same thing. I may be missing something here, or it may be a bug.
- Too many confirmation boxes. If I choose to delete all the comments on a sheet, I definitely want a confirmation box for that. But if I’m converting meters to yards or making some text proper case, I don’t want the extra click, just do the deed.
- The reminder message is a pretty cool feature. It wouldn’t be too difficult to let the user type in a custom message, so you may consider adding that feature.
All-in-all, I’m very impressed with the whole package. I’m not surprised, though, because Andrew does good work.
By the way, I concur that the name, Andrew’s Utilities, could use some work. But coming from a guy who calls his blog Daily Dose of Excel and has a domain named dicks-blog, I won’t be criticizing anybody for lack of creativity when it comes to names. Maybe you should name it Excelities or Utilexcels. How about Andrew’s Super Happy Excel Stuff? Then everyone will say “When is ASHES v.2 coming out”.
I’d say add more sub menus, not just group bars
and i agree with the confirm pop ups.
agian Andwer, really good work!
Hi Dick,
Thanks for the compliments, version 2 will be coming soon ;-)
I’ll have a look at the bits you mentioned, the select to first and last column refer to the used range, I should make that less confusing.
Yeah, the confirmation boxes were a last minute decision, I was worried about people selecting the wrong one by mistake, I might get rid of them too.
And I already thinking of a way to rearrange the menu – more submenus with less items each.
Anyway, thanks for the good advice, it’s always very much appreciated.
“Andrew’s Super Happy Excel Stuff” does have a nice ring to it…
Dick, the changes you suggested have been made with the exception of the menus (group bars have been added but I’ll wait for version 2 before I add more submenus)
More stuff is on the way, not too shabby for a VBA newbie I hope ;-)
PS. The idea to offer different menu tpes was not mine, can’t say too much just now…
Dick-
You need to change your domain name. I have accedentily typed in dick.com and I went to a nasty place. Almost got myself in trouble at work.
Andrew does have a nice little utility. Now, how will it grow?
Over the holidays a friend was telling us a similar story. There’s a chain called Dick’s Sporting Goods, and she went to dicks.com to order something for her son. Needless to say, that site didn’t have what she claims she was looking for.
“You need to change your domain name”
I hear that all the time. My first domain name, dicks-clicks, was thought up by JWalk. I thought (and think) it’s a great domain. When I did this one, I just kept the same format, even though it’s not clever.
Now quit blaming me because you got busted surfing p0rn site:)
i often type in dick-click/blog, luckly, nothing every comes up, just get the could not be found message – “claims she was looking for”, indeed. lol!