from disaster to triumph
One of the first things to catch my eye for the ST
was VIP. Several demos were released which made VIP look to be the
ultimate spreadsheet program for any of us whose previous experience
had been with 8-bit machines only. I couldn't wait and VIP
Professional duly became my first software purchase for the ST. Boy
was I wrong! That first release was so bug ridden as to be unusable
and with TOS in RAM gave you a spreadsheet about the size of a sheet
of A4! A review began to formulate in my mind along the lines of
`VIP - the ultimate con' but then Silica Distribution came to the
rescue with the 'official' U.K. version of VIP Professional. I
booted it up, it worked, and now I am completely hooked. From that
dreadful beginning came one of the most used programs on my ST.
It is not possible to go into detail in a review
of exactly what a spreadsheet of this nature can do, much of that is
left to the imagination of the user. Suffice it to say that if you
can think of an application within the capabilities of the
spreadsheet format then VIP should be able to do it for you.
Reviews elsewhere have made much of the slow
screen refresh on the ST but proper use of the editing keys can
overcome this to a large degree. The movement around the sheet is
comprehensive and it is worth spending some time familiarising
yourself with all the commands available. Almost any part of the
worksheet can be reached very quickly especially if use is made of
the superb Range Name feature where any cell or range of cells can
be given a name and then accessed immediately via a function key.
This Range Name feature can also be used when printing out parts of
the worksheet.
One of the problems on many spreadsheets is
keeping track of rows and columns when working on a large template.
VIP is a delight to use in this respect as columns or rows, or both,
can be `frozen' as titles and will then remain on screen at all
times scrolling in conjunction with the remainder of the worksheet.
Alternatively the screen can be split into two windows at any given
point and the windows can be synchronised or can be left 'fixed'.
Copying formulas or cells is very easy with
automatic re-evaluation of cell references as desired. If for
example you need to total 20 columns (or 100!) then simply define
the formula in the first column and copy that in one short process
to the remaining columns. All cell references are automatically
adjusted.
Another area where many spreadsheets become cumbersome to use is in
placing cell references in formulas. You often need to check each
part of the worksheet and make notes of the relevant cells before
entering the formula. VIP allows you to begin defining the formula
and then use the full cursor movement features to find any cell on
the worksheet. Hitting Return will then add that cell to the formula
and then allow you to go and find more cells. This works perfectly
well with ranges also. In fact in all respects VIP is very easy to
use once you have remembered the keystrokes but if you get stuck a
help file can be called up at any point and of course there is
always the 250 page manual!
One area which I left for some time, feeling it
was too involved, was the macro facility but with a little practice
macros will change VIP from a static piece of software to a superb
working tool designed specifically for your needs. If you purchase
VIP, learn how to use the macros, you will not regret it.
User
defined menus
Graphing capabilities
There are many, many, more features to VIP which
it will not be possible to cover in this review so I will attempt to
give an idea of what can be achieved by giving you illustrations of
an actual template in use involving a fair number of macros. I have
set up templates which handle self employed accounts, VAT returns,
household accounts, mortgage analysis and others but the one used
for illustration is for analysis of daily cash takings. This is set
up as a separate worksheet for each working week with columns headed
by each of the items, in categories, that customers can purchase.
There are 22 columns with 40 rows for each day of the week before
everything is totalled. A simple macro allows additional rows to be
inserted should the space become full and any recalculations of cell
references are taken care of automatically. Payments are simply
entered as received and broken down into categories. A checksum
column is used at the end to ensure that entries balance.
When a new week is started an `auto execute' macro
checks to see if a week number has been entered on the worksheet
just loaded. If not it asks for a week number and the date. All
dates for the remaining days of the week are calculated
automatically from this. If the worksheet has already been used
during the current week, this stage is skipped and the program goes
on to present a user defined menu allowing the choice of moving to
the part of the spreadsheet for the appropriate day. By using the
Range Name feature a single macro keystroke moves the cursor to the
appropriate part of the worksheet, moves fives lines down, fixes the
rows above the cursor as titles and waits for you to enter the day's
payments.
Once the day's receipts have been entered another
single keystroke will calculate the entire spreadsheet, updating the
totals for the week. If the checksums do not agree for any row a
warning is given and you are returned to the worksheet to correct
the error. Assuming all is well a `Print' menu is displayed and
hitting return will print out a particular day. When printing is
finished further menus ensure that you Save the worksheet and take a
backup before quitting or automatically loading another worksheet.
All of this is accomplished by user defined macros and makes VIP
easy to use even for an operator who is not used to computers.
Defining the macros themselves does require a
little understanding of computer programming but will be simple for
anyone who can understand even limited BASIC. Macros are extremely
powerful and I keep adding little refinements almost week by week to
ensure that the program does exactly what I want it to do.
I haven't touched on the graphing capabilities or
data functions but any of the information entered can be graphed in
several different ways quite easily and graphs once defined can be
named, saved and recalled at will.
There is no doubt that VIP Professional is a very
powerful package. It is easy, fun and exciting to use and can do
almost anything you can think of. It is expensive at £194.35 but is
a fraction of the price your business colleagues will pay for their
1-2-3's and the like and it will do just the same. One initial
disappointment, by the way, was that the version I have is a 'text'
version in that it does not use GEM. I was upset at this at first
but having found the program so easy to use I cannot see how a GEM
version will improve it. Indeed I feel that the opposite will be
true and I will not bother to get the GEM upgrade which is promised
for June release. Funny thing to say, you might think but there are
some applications where the GEM environment adds nothing to the ease
of use of the program.
Finally a couple of criticisms. There are still
one or two minor bugs in the program so ensure that you have
back-ups before making any major changes to the structure of a
template. Secondly, VIP really gobbles up memory in an alarming
fashion, especially when using a lot of formulas. I have a template
set up on K-SPREAD which uses lots of formulas and takes up 113k.
With VIP you get an 'out of memory' message on this template when
only half has been entered, even on a 1Mb 1040ST!
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