New to MAC - VB Questions

Hello All, I have finally decided that the M$ world is just too time consuming to keep up with. Having to re-learn a new OS every couple of years has finally caught up with me. I am about to take the leap to the MAC world. One of the things that concerns me is the many VB applications I have written in years past. I have rather extensively researched options on the internet to implement VB on a MAC but am confused by what I find (or don't find)! Most of the apps I developed were stand alone and NOT a part of a Word file or Excel worksheet. My question is will the VB that is available in Office for MAC 2011 support stand alone programs? I don't mind adapting my VB6 programs to the MAC environment, but can I rely on some platform for MAC VB to provide me with the tools that were available in VB6? For example, interpreter, app packager, compiler, etc.? Thanks in advance for any advice or info you can provide.

Yes, but there are a couple of quriks.

1) Mac doesn't support ActiveX controls. They will have to be changed to Forms controls.
2) Userforms are fine, but RowSource isn't supported. Listboxes and ComboBoxes have to be filled other ways.
3) The Dictionary object isn't available in Mac.

Other quirks we've found, some bigger than others:

1. There's no automated installation mechanism to install an add-in in Office 2011 as there is in 2010 and earlier Windows versions. Users have to manually install via Tools/Add-Ins UI in the host application.
2. There's no mechanism to digitally sign a VBA project so users are faced with verbose security messages regardless of whether they trust the publisher or not.
3. It might be obvious but you can't use Windows API calls so porting to Mac means you need to look at using AppleScript via the VBA MacScript() function or something else for non-VBA custom functions.
4. Controls are limited in their availability in a similar way that they are in VBA7. For example, there is no TreeView control.
5. Some functions don't appear to be available. For example, the LoadPicture() function used to change the picture of an Image Control on a Form at run time isn't available, making the control much less useful.
6. The Ribbon is not extensible in Office 2011 so it's necessary to redesign with command bar menus.
7. PowerPoint 2011 doesn’t support Application Events.

On the positive side, there are some nice touches such as SaveSetting() and GetSetting() which use the Windows Registry on a Windows PC will work without change on a Mac (although the settings are stored elsewhere in a .plist file). The MacScript() function will provide developers with a lot of flexibility.

Although there's an introduction to VBA over at the Microsoft MSDN site (msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg597509.aspx), that includes Mac specificities, we haven't yet found a place that documents ALL differences between 6.5 and 7 so if anyone has found such a resource...

GMARK - PowerPoint Solutions