Hi,
I am developing an Excel app. whose primary function will be for modelling hydraulic (water supply) systems. It already contains a lot of calculations and graphs and so on and is getting quite large (about 8 megs so far).
The idea is that users will create their models in a 'template' version of the workbook and then save each model under a different filename. The only problem with this is that each model (workbook) is going to be quite large (at least 8 megs).
I was wanting to create a system whereby users can save just the model-specific information and then save this seperate to the main application. So it would work in the same way as a stand-alone application where the main program can be quite large but the saved files are only small (since they contain only the data relevant to each model rather than all the calculation, graphs and functions and so on).
Users could then load up the main application and then load/save each model as a seperate (and much smaller) workbook rather than having to save the entire application everytime they create a new model. This is the way I was thinking of doing it:
When saving:
1) Have a save button on the primary worksheet of the main application.
2) When saving, create a new workbook and then copy/paste all the relevant data to the new workbook
3) Ask user to specify the name of the save file and then save this to disk.
When loading:
1) Have a open button on the primary worksheet of the main application.
2) Bring up an Open dialog box asking user to browse/select which file to open
3) Have some kind of check to ensure that they are opening the right sort of workbook (a saved model rather than some other workbook).
4) Open the selected workbook (saved model)
5) Copy/paste the relevant data from the save file to the main application.
I have several questions about this approach:
1) Does it seem feasilble?
2) Are there any major problems I might encounter if I try to do it this way?
3) Is there a better option that I just haven't though of?
Thanks
-Rob
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