Here is a little .Net app that shows how you can get hold of an excel instance so that you can use that Excel object from code - but with out using IDT. This is useful when writing classes rather than managed addins. I will hopefully make a post about how we can use .net classes from VBA in a little bit, but this is worth a post in it's own right.
here is the example app
Know, the most interesting method here is the bind to moniker one as that lets us get the application that a particular file is active in, and so give use the most certainty that we are targeting the Excel instance we wish to. I have stuck this into a function:
VB.NET:
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Imports System.Runtime.InteropServices
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Imports xl = excel.application
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'''Class for Getting an Excel Intance
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Public Class GetExcelInstance
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Public Function GetTargetXLApplication(ByVal sPassedFilePath As String) As Excel.Application
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Dim sFilePath As String = sPassedFilePath
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Dim wkbBindToBook As Excel.Workbook
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Dim blXLBelongsToUs As Boolean ''FLAG FOR KILLING XL APP LATER
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Dim cFiles As System.IO.FileInfo
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Dim sWkbName As String
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''get filename from path
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cFiles = My.Computer.FileSystem.GetFileInfo(sFilePath)
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sWkbName = cFiles.Name
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Try
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''Set our target wkb from the file path to our
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''.net wkb ojbect dimed here
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wkbBindToBook = Marshal.BindToMoniker(sFilePath)
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''set the appliction referance to the host excel sever this workbook is running in
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GetTargetXLApplication = wkbBindToBook.Application
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''the following code manipulates the excel clients window state.
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If GetTargetXLApplication.Visible = False Then
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''we opened excel
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GetTargetXLApplication.Visible = True
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GetTargetXLApplication.Windows(sWkbName).Visible = True
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blXLBelongsToUs = False ''FLAG FOR QUITING IF WE STARTED IT
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' MsgBox("Moniker from no intance") ''for debug
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Else
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''excel was opened but we loaded a hidden file into it, lets make it visable
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If GetTargetXLApplication.Windows(sWkbName).Visible = False Then
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GetTargetXLApplication.Windows(sWkbName).Visible = True
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' MsgBox("Moniker from existing intance") ''for debug
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End If
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' MsgBox("Moniker from existing intance") ''for debug
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End If
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Catch ex As Exception
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MsgBox(ex.Message)
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GetTargetXLApplication = nothing 'sets function to null object if error happen
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End Try
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End Function
The VS project files are here
