XVBA — Live Server VBA for Excel & Access

Edit VBA code in Visual Studio Code with IntelliSense, a smart Live Server, snippets, auto-complete, ribbon designer, and macro runner — all tightly integrated with Excel and Access.

What's New in 4.0.34

What's New in 4.0.33

What's New in 4.0.32

What's New in 4.0.31

Key Features

• Edit VBA in VSCode — navigate, search, refactor, and version-control your VBA code with the full power of VS Code.
• Live Server — save a .bas, .cls, or .frm file and it appears in Excel automatically. Only the changed file is sent.
• Export Changed VBA — manually push only modified files at any time without reloading the whole project.
• Import VBA — pull the current state of all VBA modules from Excel or Access into your workspace.
• Run Macros from TreeView — click any macro in the XVBA panel to run it in Excel with a full error log.
• Namespace / folder organisation — map VBA files to sub-folders using the 'namespace= tag.
• Auto-complete (LSP) — language server provides context-aware completions, hover docs, and go-to-definition.
• Syntax highlighting — full VBA/VBScript grammar including .cls, .bas, .frm, .vbs, .catscript.
• Code formatter — auto-indent and format with Alt+Shift+F (set formatter to local-smart.excel-live-server).
• Snippets — all XVBA snippets start with x- (block comment, Dim declarations, Sub/Function, etc.).
• Custom Ribbon Menus — build Excel ribbon XML with custom images directly from VSCode.
• Immediate Window (Xdebug) — simulate VBA's Immediate Window inside the VSCode output channel.
• Production / Dev modes — files in xvba_unit_test are exported only in Production mode.
• Third-party packages — install VBA packages via @localsmart/xvba-cli and the xvba.dev registry.
• Type definition files — .d.vb files for Excel object model auto-complete.

Installation

Save your work and make a backup before setting up the server for the first time.

1 — Allow Excel to run macros on open

2 — Bootstrap XVBA

Click the Bootstrap icon in the XVBA tree view. This creates config.json in your workspace root:

{
  "app_name": "XVBA",
  "excel_file": "index.xlsb",
  "vba_folder": "vba-files"
}

vba_folder must be a path relative to the workspace no absolute paths.

3 — Import VBA (optional)

If your Excel file already contains VBA code, click Import VBA to pull all modules into your workspace.

4 — Start the Live Server

Click Start XVBA Live Server. From this point every file you save is automatically pushed to Excel only the changed file, instantly.

Toolbar Commands

Export Changed VBA — How it works

1. First click — XVBA captures a snapshot of all VBA file modification times. Nothing is sent to Excel yet. A message confirms the baseline is ready.
2. Edit any file and click again — only files whose mtime is newer than the snapshot are sent to Excel. ScreenUpdating, Calculation, and EnableEvents are disabled during import so Excel does not freeze.
3. After each successful export the snapshot is updated so only new changes are detected next time.

To reset the baseline manually, delete %TEMP%\xvba_change_tracker.json.

Live Server How it works

• Start — initialises the change-tracking snapshot and registers watchers on vba_folder, xvba_modules, and xvba_unit_test.
• On save — chokidar fires a change event with the exact file path. The mtime is compared against the snapshot. If genuinely newer, only that one file is sent via RUN_CHANGED. Duplicate OS events (Windows fires 2-3 per save) are discarded.
• After export — the snapshot entry for that file is updated (markFilesAsExported).
• Import VBA — automatically stops the watcher and refreshes the snapshot when import finishes, so the Live Server will not re-send the newly imported files.

Namespace Organise VBA Files in Sub-folders

Add a 'namespace= tag at the top of any VBA file to control which folder it lives in:

'namespace=Controllers
Public Sub PageController()
  ' ...
End Sub

Run Macros from TreeView

Right-click any macro in the XVBA — Macro List panel and select Run Macro. Results and errors appear in excel_exec.log.

Function MyMacro()
  On Error Resume Next
  Err.Source = "MyMacro"
  ' your code here
End Function

Export Modes

When clicking Export VBA you are prompted for a mode:

Using Erl() for error location

Sub MyMacro()
    On Error GoTo ErrHandler
    ' ... your code ...
    Exit Sub
ErrHandler:
    MsgBox "Error at line " & Erl & " — " & Err.Description
End Sub

With Dev (With Line Number) active, Erl returns the same line number shown in VS Code, so you can navigate directly to the failing line.

Code Formatter

Set the default formatter to local-smart.excel-live-server in VSCode settings and use Alt+Shift+F to format any VBA file.

Immediate Window Xdebug

Install the Xdebug package to simulate Excel's Immediate Window inside the VSCode output channel.

Comment Block

The first comment block in a file is used as the module/class description for hover and auto-complete:

'/*
'
' My module description
'
'*/
Public Sub Main()
End Sub

Code Annotations

XVBA-CLI Package Manager

Install third-party VBA packages from xvba.dev:

npm i @localsmart/xvba-cli@latest --save-dev

See XVBA-CLI on npm.

Snippets

All XVBA snippets start with x-. Examples:

Troubleshooting

File encoding issues — VBA files use Windows-1252 encoding. Add to VSCode settings.json:

"files.encoding": "windows1252",
"files.autoGuessEncoding": true

Sheets disappear after import — Go to Excel View menu and select Unhide.

Trust access to VBA project — Excel must have Trust access to the VBA project object model enabled: File -> Options -> Trust Center -> Macro Settings -> check the box.

Export Changed VBA always shows no changes — Delete %TEMP%\xvba_change_tracker.json to reset the snapshot.

Excel freezes after Live Server sends a file — Fixed in 4.0.31. If it still occurs, make sure you are running the latest built extension (npm run webpack) and reload the extension host.

Extension host did not start in 10 seconds — Fixed in 4.0.31. The extension now completes activation immediately and writes VBScript files in the background.

VBScript files not created in temp folder — Fixed in 4.0.33. The root cause was any-promise listed as a webpack external, causing a silent crash at extension load time. All .vbs and .xml communication files are now written synchronously on every activation. Check %TEMP%\xvba_log\xvba_info.log for [XVBA] dir OK / [XVBA] file OK entries confirming each path, or FAIL entries with the exact error.

Dev (With Line Number) imports wrong lines — Fixed in 4.0.31. Line numbers now map 1-to-1 with VS Code line indices so Erl() is accurate.

System Requirements

• Windows 10 / 11
• Microsoft Office 2016 or later (tested with Office 2019)
• Not tested on macOS or virtual machines
• Node.js 12+ (required for xvba-cli only)

YouTube Tutorials

XVBA YouTube Channel

• How to install — First Steps
• Namespace — Organise files in sub-folders
• Create Custom Ribbon Menus
• Use Production / Dev mode
• Code Formatter
• Git with VBA
• Comment blocks and type definition files
• Install xvba-cli and use packages

Support XVBA

If you find XVBA useful, please consider becoming a sponsor on Patreon to help build a free programming school in Vargem Bonita, Brazil and keep the tools improving.

Contributing

Contributions are welcomed and appreciated.

• GitHub: Aeraphe
• Mail: alberto.aeraph@gmail.com
• WhatsApp: +55 31 9 9229 5626
• Please leave a review and star the repo

Built With

• VBScript grammar by Darfka (auto-indentation rules)
• luggage66/vscode-vbscript (syntax highlighting)
• chokidar (file watching)
• winston (logging)
• xml2js (XML communication with Excel)

Version History

See CHANGELOG.md.