AppActivate Does Not Activate Application

[jimjeffco]

Building VBA that performs an action using the TextEdit program. This is operating on a Mac with Excel 2004. File path is verified as correct, VBA complies but code generates a run time 5 error on the AppActivate ReturnValue line. Here is the code:

Sub OpenTextEdit()

Dim ReturnValue As Long

ReturnValue = Shell("~Mac 120GB:Applications:TextEdit", 1)
AppActivate ReturnValue

' Other code to run once application is open resides here

End Sub

Even setting the file path to activate Microsoft Word generates the same error.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Ed in Aus]

Hi Jim,

The code you are using assumes you have notepad already running.

This example illustrates various uses of the AppActivate function to activate an application window. If a Notepad process is not running, the example throws an ArgumentException. The Shell procedure assumes the applications are in the paths specified.

Dim notepadID As Integer
' Activate a running Notepad process.
AppActivate("Untitled - Notepad") 
' AppActivate can also use the return value of the Shell function.
' Shell runs a new instance of Notepad.
notepadID = Shell("C:\WINNT\NOTEPAD.EXE", AppWinStyle.NormalFocus)
' Activate the new instance of Notepad.  
AppActivate(notepadID)

With yopur code, you may want to try this but don't use a mac so have no idea how it may work.

Sub OpenTextEdit()

Dim ReturnValue As Long

ReturnValue = Shell("~Mac 120GB:Applications:TextEdit", 1)
call ReturnValue 
AppActivate ReturnValue

' Other code to run once application is open resides here

End Sub

 

[Tom Urtis]

Would this work:

VBA.AppActivate Application.Caption
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[jimjeffco]

Ed and Tom,

I appreciate your input but will need to abandon this project. It appears to be a Excel-Mac issue as even verifying through VBA that the available References are active, a simple statement such as SendKeys generates a run time error as Excel indicates that command does not exist in Mac Excel. I'll wait to run this on a Windows version as that VBA is better documented (and operational from my past VBA experience ) than on the Mac platform.

Jim

 

[Ed in Aus]

Hi Jim,

try this.

Dim strPath As String
strPath = ("~Mac 120GB:Applications:TextEdit", 1)
Shell strPath & "", vbNormalFocus

 

[jimjeffco]

It would still error out until I changed:

strPath = ("~Mac 120GB:Applications:TextEdit", 1)

to this:

strPath = ("~Mac 120GB:Applications:TextEdit")

I came across VBA once modified that suited my purpose at:
http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/pub0009/LPMArticle.asp?ID=622

Thanks again for your input as I can now complete the remaining code.