Rubberduck for Excel on Mac

[ashkaps]

Is it possible that I can use Rubberduck for excel on my Mac? Can someone please guide me through the steps if available? Thanks!

[retailcoder]

I don't have a Mac to test it, but I'll venture to say that even if Mac-VBA supported IDE add-ins (does it?), it couldn't work even if we wanted it to, because:

• It's written in C#, compiled in .NET (not .NET Core), and requires the full-fledged framework. Rubberduck on a Mac is likely failing at the "run the installer" step, even assuming a Mac knows what to do with a .msi file.
• COM components are registered in the Windows Registry. No such thing on a Mac AFAIK.
• Win32 p/invoke: Rubberduck patches a lot of holes in the VBIDE API using Win32 functions that are located in system libraries that wouldn't exist on a Mac (e.g. Kernel32.dll and User32.dll).
• File system differences: Rubberduck reads and writes files from the file system.
• Altogether different IDE: not sure there's even an IDTExtensibility2 entry point available to hook up add-ins. And if there is, I'm not sure the VBIDE API is even available on a Mac. Even if there's a VBIDE API that works on a Mac, I'm pretty sure the CommandBar API wouldn't; we have no way to add our custom menus anywhere if we can't get a handle on the IDE's main commandbar/menubar.

There are probably a ton of other reasons why it simply can't work, but these alone should make a solid case against it.

Sorry!

[ashkaps]

Okay. That makes it clear. So any idea if you can help me, are there other tools like rubberduck that i can use on Mac?

[retailcoder]

I don't think any VBE add-in comes anywhere close to offer half of Rubberduck's functionality, but if even the closest thing (MZ-Tools) doesn't run on a Mac, IMO that pretty much seals it: VBE extensibility on a Mac is a hopeless venture.

[retailcoder]

FYI I asked on the Bringing back visual basic IDE to Office for Mac discussion thread on answers.microsoft.com, to see if there was any way to extend the Mac VBE.

[ThunderFrame]

VBA in Excel for Mac 2016, already has a severely hampered VBA editor - see Bring back a fully functional VBE (Visual Basic Editor for VBA).

But even before that, Office for mac never had the ability to use COM add-ins, nor to use nearly as many ActiveX controls as Windows, not the ability to call as many DLLs. The only way to have something "like" Rubberduck on a Mac, would be to write the entire thing in VBA.

Currently, the best VBA experience on a Mac involves a virtual PC and a Windows instance.

[retailcoder]

@ThunderFrame IDK, maybe there could be an extensibility point accessible with some clever Objective-C code. I doubt it, but there's nothing like asking :smiley: