Resume Opening Workbook After Addin Interrupts

0
votes

I've written an Excel addin that periodically checks a remote repository for data updates, including a check when the addin loads at Excel start up (during the addin's Workbook_Open event). If new respository data is detected, the addin asks the user for permission to proceed with the update. If the user clicks "yes", the addin successfully updates itself and everything is happy... except...

If Excel is not already running and the user selects an Excel file to open (e.g. via double-click in Windows), this sequence of events occurs and everything works, but the user-requested file opening is interrupted and not re-engaged. The Excel app is running, but with no workbook loaded (the workbook area is an empty frame).

I believe I have two options, neither of which I know how to accomplish:

  1. Prevent the addin from completing its update check until the user-selected file has completed its open sequence and is fully loaded, or
  2. Allow the addin to update itself and then somehow re-engage the user-selected file to complete the file open/load.

I have not been able to discover the filename/path of the user-requested file, so my addin isn't able to direct that file to be loaded.

My current workaround is a MsgBox telling the user to close Excel and re-open the selected file. Ideally, the addin update should occur and the original action should complete without requiring user intervention.

(Building on Option 1, I could start a delay timer for the addin to check for updates XX number of seconds after Excel starts, but this seems kludgy to me.)

Any guidance or ideas are appreciated. My interwebz searches aren't hitting the right combination of keywords for the exact scenario.

1
vbaexcel

1 Answers

0
votes

  1. Instead of opening the new addin update file immediately you can use OnTime to delay it which should allow the other file to open successfully. See here: Process for updating Excel add-in?

  2. In the answer you'll also see a reference to this package here which does everything you need. Autoupdates are hard so I would recommend going with someone else's solution. http://www.decisionmodels.com/downloads.htm#addload (Scroll down to Add-In Loader Version 2)