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Show HN: I've built a C# IDE, Runtime, and AppStore inside Excel

querystorm.com
670 points·by anakic·il y a 3 ans·179 comments

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anakic
·il y a 3 ans·discuss
Fala, Ivane:)
anakic
·il y a 3 ans·discuss
Back online now
anakic
·il y a 3 ans·discuss
Too bad about 8h of downtime in the middle of it trending, but yeah, can't complain too much about it:)
anakic
·il y a 3 ans·discuss
Would love to! There's a library called Math.NET that I wanted to look into, but never got around to it (plus, I forgot 99% of the math I learned in college so wouldn't know how to use it). Can you get in touch via email: antonio [at] querystorm.com?
anakic
·il y a 3 ans·discuss
Yeah:) Of course it happens while I'm asleep. Serves me right for loading the post with so many gifs... Back online now.
anakic
·il y a 3 ans·discuss
Oh man, limit happened while I was asleep. Thanks for the stopgap measure. Just got the bandwith limit removed with my hosting provider.
anakic
·il y a 3 ans·discuss
Hope you give it a go. I'd love to know how you get on with it if you do!
anakic
·il y a 3 ans·discuss
Would love to know how you get on with it. If you'd care to share, please to let me know.
anakic
·il y a 3 ans·discuss
Thanks for trying it and replying back here.

It looks like I was using a pre-release version of QueryStorm while I was writing the blog post. I just released that version so if you restart Excel you should get an "Update available" button in the QueryStorm ribbon in Excel.

Could you update and post back if that fixed the problem?

Another way of "fixing" it would be to replace the following line:

   (excel.Selection as Range).WriteTable(files, "myNewTable");
with this line:

   Write(files, "myNewTable");
The Write method is available globally (it's not a method that belongs to a class). This is a trick specific to C# scripts (would be illegal in regular C#).

The documentation does lack detail in some areas, which I basically cover by answering questions via email. I do need to invest time every so often to update and extend it.
anakic
·il y a 3 ans·discuss
I use Wix for the installer. Can't remember how I dealt with that particular issue, but ping me at antonio [at] querystorm.com in a day or two, if you're interested, and I'll have a look at how exactly I dealt with it.
anakic
·il y a 3 ans·discuss
I like that a gifs shows so much in very little space, but I take your point about it being distracting. Regular mp4 videos you can play/pause explicitly might be a better option for the future.
anakic
·il y a 3 ans·discuss
Unfortunately, no. Excel for Mac doesn't support either of the two technologies QueryStorm uses to talk to Excel (namely VSTO and ExcelDNA).

Might be possible to build something that would work across all plaforms using Blazor and the Monaco editor, but that would be another huge project.
anakic
·il y a 3 ans·discuss
Thanks! Wouldn't mind that outcome one bit. It's hard to get exposure and adoption for a platform like this without some serious muscle backing it. I suspect Microsoft has its sights set on the cloud, though, but still, it would be amazing if they adopted QueryStorm.
anakic
·il y a 3 ans·discuss
It's something to consider, for sure. Perhaps there's an easy win to be had there.
anakic
·il y a 3 ans·discuss
You mean add the workbook itself into the folder as binary file to include in source control? I haven't, but it might make sense, to keep the workbook in sync with the source code.
anakic
·il y a 3 ans·discuss
I was considering "for" but I wanted to imply that the IDE is actually located inside Excel, rather than being a separate program.
anakic
·il y a 3 ans·discuss
Yep, that's the idea.

You create a project that defines some custom functions, ribbon commands, context menus, shortcuts etc... and then publish it to a store. Then anyone who has the QueryStorm Runtime (and the url of the store you published to) can install it through the "Extensions" dialog.

I haven't yet set up the ability to charge for packages but I plan on offering this. I first need a community of users, so didn't focus on charging yet.

If you'd like some help setting up something like that AWS scenario, reach me via email: antonio [at] querystorm.com, I've done several such integrations already (Google analytics, Monday.com, TSheets, Google drive).
anakic
·il y a 3 ans·discuss
Yeah, I just checked and it fails on some gifs for me as well (but works on others for some reason). I'll leave it as is for now, best not fiddle with it while this post is trending.
anakic
·il y a 3 ans·discuss
I would love to but I'm a bit scared to fiddle with the post now while it's trending. I think it's mentioned in a few places on the website, but not in this blog post. I do also use a bunch of other libraries, but yeah, ExcelDNA is one of the critical ones so mentioning it would be in order.
anakic
·il y a 3 ans·discuss
Yeah, you can import the folder back into the project and it will replace all of the existing files with the ones from the folder.