Frequently Asked Questions
Toolbar Failure
Problem: When you hit any
Toolbar button, you get a message such as "Maclib.xls could not be
found", or "You cannot open two versions of maclib.xls".
Resolution: This is a painful
Excel feature. When you copy the maclib.xls file from place to place, Excel
alters the location where the toolbar buttons look for the macro code to the
new file location. If you then delete it (or it is on A:, for instance), there
is no code to find, and you get these sorts of message.
There is a way to clear
this without reinstalling - indeed, reinstalling won't work because the toolbar
location is part of your Excel set-up, so survives through a re-install -
follow these instructions:
a) open up Excel (no files
open);
b) use View - Toolbars
-Customize to get the necessary box;
c) Take the slide bar to
the bottom to reveal the set of Fin-S Toolbars, BUTSES through to
TOFSES;
d) Highlight (as opposed to
tick-box) each toolbar in turn, and delete it using the button;
e) When all toolbars have
been cleared, close the dialogue box, then open the C:\maclib.xls file.
Your toolbars should be
restored to full working order.
Macros Cannot Be Enabled
Problem: When you hit any
Toolbar button, you get a message such as "Maclib.xls could not be
found"; when you open “maclib.xls”, you are not prompted to enable macros.
Resolution: Under more
recent versions of Windows (particularly ME and XP), Excel comes with the
capability to run macros EXPLICITLY TURNED OFF. Fin-s needs this capability
turned back on.
a) open up Excel, with no
files open;
b) select “Tools”, then
“Macro”, then “Security…”;
c) set the Security level
to Medium;
d) open maclib.xls and you
should be prompted to enable the macros.
Compile Error when Running
Macros
Problem: When you hit a
toolbar button, you get thrown into the Visual Basic Editor with a Dialogue Box
saying “Compiler Error”
Resolution: Under some
release of Excel, the ability to use Dynamic Variable Allocation is delivered
as DISABLED. Fin-S needs this capability enabled. To fix it:
a) open up Excel, and open
C:\maclib.xls;
b) select “Tools”, then
“Macro” and “Visual Basic Editor”
c) select “Tools”, then
“Options”, then select the “Editor” tab if it not already selected;
d) uncheck the tick-box
labeled “Require Variable Declaration”.
Movement Load Problems
Problem: When you try to
load a movement, you get the message "That Library does not appear to be
open - try again"
Resolution: This is usually
caused by confusion between movements and movement libraries. A movement
library is an Excel file containing a number of movement definitions. A
movement is what you would play in a single session. Fin-S has an option
cell for the movement library name, which is usually "movmitch" or
"movhowell" or something similar, and will prompt you for the
movement name, e.g. M9B3. In V5, you can put the movement name in a separate
option cell. What tends to happen is that new users confuse the two, and put
the movement name in the option cell for the movement library name, so Fin-S
tries to find an Excel file called "M9B3", and it isn't there.
Run-Time Errors
Problem: You get a message
up which says something like "Run-Time Error 9".
Resolution: This means that
something has gone wrong with the Visual Basic code on which Fin-S is
based. There are numerous causes, but the main one seems to be where people
have used Excel features such as Copy & Paste to move data around,
particularly names in a CLUBDB database. CLUBDB uses Excel features which can
be corrupted by data being copied around in this way - a tell-tale sign is
usually finding "#REF" in some of the cells of the
"MP_Sessions" or "Percentage" sheets. If this occurs, your
best bet is to send me a copy of the files where you are encountering the
problem so that I can address it for you, unless you are very confident that
you can put the corruption right.
Can’t Find Project or
Library
This is a relatively new
problem. When you try and run any toolbar button, you get the above message.
This seems to be limited to people with the latest releases of Microsoft
operating system (e.g. XP) where there are problems with the References.
Although this is not a guaranteed fix, if you get into the Visual Basic Editor
(on the “Tools” menu in Excel, select “Macro”, then “Macros”, then “Edit”), and
you should be able to find the references under the tools menu.
If you select “References”,
you will see a window like this below.
You will probably find that
one of the “ticked” boxes starts with the word “MISSING” – this means that your
PC does not have that library installed – you need to un-tick that box and find
another one to tick from within the list, e.g. you might have the “Microsoft
CDO 1.21 Library” to replace the library highlighted above – if you cannot sort
this out, seek support by mailing me.
Can’t Open Maclib
because of “Security Level”
This is a problem
particularly experienced by those using Microsoft XP operating system – when
you try to open Maclib.xls, usually by hitting a toolbar button or name, you
get an error message telling you that you cannot open it because the file
contains macros and the Security Level in Excel is set to “High”.
You can get round this by
opening Excel, then from the “Tools” menu, select “Options” and then
“Security”. You should find that the Macro Security settings are set to “High”
– alter this to “Medium”. This won’t do you any harm – you will simply be
prompted to enable macros each time you open a file which has them, rather than
being refused automatically. You can set it to “Low”, which means that you
won’t get prompted every time, but that does expose you to possible security
threats, so I don’t recommend it.
Last modified by Chris
Stableford, February 2007