The ability to use VBA and scripting throughout iFIX opens the system for almost limitless uses. VBA can be used to significantly customize and extend the functionality of iFIX. As with all good tools, you need to develop a sound strategy for implementing VBA in your applications. It is important to remember that you should use VBA to leverage additional functionality, rather than using it to replace existing, built-in iFIX functionality.
While addressing the fundamentals of how to write solid VBA code is beyond the scope of this document, this chapter does contain some suggestions for effectively using VBA in your iFIX process. This chapter includes the following sections:
- Tuning Your Scripting Performance
- Cleaning Your Code
- Accessing the Database from Scripting
- Placing Code in the Initialize and Activate Events
- Using iFIX Subroutines and Experts
- Working with the Scheduler
- Referencing Pictures or Global Pages
- User Globals
