File-based configuration

[teknowledgist]

Hi. I've been using this macro for about a decade, but couldn't figure out how to contribute on the old site. I have a couple thoughts about "improving" it...

• 1. I have another macro that I cobbled together from bits and pieces (I'm not good with VBS/VBA.) that does a randomized, "fortune-cookie" signature pulled from a file of quotes. Is that something you would be interested in having folded into this? I think it fits the "theme" since folks who use plain-text are also more likely to be familiar with the old fortune-cookie quotes.
• 2. Somehow I never realized the "nickname" feature was there before now, but that may be because regedit is largely off limits at my organization. I can get to it as a sysadmin, but very few other folks know how to get around the block (if they are even comfortable poking in the registry). I understand why all the settings are saved/pulled from the registry, but as a user, I would much prefer using a text-file-based option for the nicknames (only -- not the settings) that would be easier to access and adjust. I think I could add it (even as an option keeping the current registry method) based on the code I have in my signature macro. I don't want to spend the time if you are outright against it though.

Thanks!

[koppor]

Nice to hear that you are still using the macro. I kind of rediscovered it, because my colleague found it using Google. - SourceForge also has some kind of pull requests. However, there, the project used SVN. One had to publish .patch files. That was difficult and many patches are still not applied. That is tracked at #3.

Regarding your proposals: I like both 🎉 . The first one could also be used to advertise some blog entries or interesting links. The second idea is also very helpful. Back then, registry was no issue. Now, it really is. - Configuring inside .bas is also not a good thing.

Thus, I am looking forward on contributions.

[koppor]

(Evaluation following the MADR format)

Libraries for configuration files:

• JSON: https://github.com/VBA-tools/VBA-JSON

  • Good, because standard format
  • Neutral, because not common to all users
  • Bad, because additional dependency

• Local Storage: https://github.com/VBA-tools/VBA-LocalStorage

• YAML: https://stackoverflow.com/q/38738162/873282

• XML: https://github.com/VBA-tools/vba-xml

• CSV: hand-crafted

• Self-defined format. E.g., based on

  quotefixmacro/EmailSigs.txt

  Line 1 in 2a4b859

  Mr. Owt Lookuser

  defining a sequence of text lines, maybe

  [email protected]
  D.
  

  with semantics

  email
  First Name
  

  • Good, because it is simple
  • Bad, because it is not extensible

I like well-known meta file formats (JSON, XML, ...) instead of custom formats, because the extensibility of data is quite easy. Assume, for instance, we want to add "saluation" (Mr./Ms.).