Can I do VBA programming with Vim?

Question

Part of my job right now is to build some dynamic functionalities into Microsoft Office documents. The only means I've found to do this is through VBA - and thus, the VBA editor which comes built in to Office docs.

The VBA editor is awful. It's missing a million different functionalities that modern development environments need to support. But the worst part is that I'm a hard-core Vim lover, and the VBA editor is barely any better than notepad.

So: Is there any way I can effectively use Vim to do VBA programming? Short of copy-pasting my code into the VBA editor from a different window when I want to try it?

Answer 1

I've never used the VBA editor, but here's something I've done with MS Visual Studio. (MSVS's editor does have some nice features, but I still prefer vim for most editing.)

I open or create the source file in MSVS. I then get the full path to the file (by right-clicking on the tab and selecting "Copy Full Path"), and open the same file in vim in a different window.

I use alt-tab to bounce back and forth between vim and MSVS. When I make a change in vim, I use :w to write the change, then alt-tab back to MSVS. The MSVS editor notices that the file has changed on disk and offers to read the updated version.

Alternatively, if I change the file in MSVS, I write the file (File > Save ...), then alt-tab to vim and use :e! to read the updated file into the vim buffer.

There's no need to copy-paste the code, since both editors are operating on the same disk file. I just have to be very careful not to make changes in both vim and MSVS without writing the file to disk.

It's ugly, and it's not for everyone, but it works for me. Maybe it will work for you.

I use Cygwin, so it's actually a little more complicated; Cygwin programs, including vim, don't recognize Windows-style paths. I can do this:

vi $(cygpath 'WINDOWS_PATH')

where WINDOWS_PATH is pasted from the full path I get from MSVS. The single quotes are necessary to keep the shell from interpreting the \ characters. If you're using a Windows native vim, this step isn't necessary.