What is Masquerade?

Masquerade is a spreadsheet compiler that turns worksheets into stand-alone applications. If you’re a consultant or an in-house developer, that means you can use Masquerade to create custom applications with formulas and layouts that can’t be modified by errant users. Furthermore, Masquerade saves you money, because you don’t have to purchase a spreadsheet program for every user who runs your application, as you have to do with applications that are created with conventional spreadsheet programs such as Microsoft Excel. Although you can use Masquerade to turn Excel worksheets into applications, a major shortcoming is Masquerade's lack of support for specific features new to version 3.0 of Excel.

Riding on Excel

Masquerade is itself a full-featured spreadsheet program, but it’s designed primarily to ride on the coattails of Excel. As such, it supports more than 100 basic Excel commands and more than 130 macro commands. In addition, the program provides in-cell text editing, integrated charting, linking, custom menu bars and dialog boxes, and the ability to add clip art to worksheets.

But, as already mentioned. Excel aficionados won’t find features new to version 3D supported in version 1.1 of Masquerade. Masquerade is in the unfortunate position of playing perpetual catch-up with Excel, and several Excel 3.0 features aren’t likely to be supported in Masquerade for some time. Moreover, some of Excel 3.0’s esoteric features such as self-launching macros may never appear in Masquerade.

Developers can enhance the appearance of their applications as well as make them easier to use by adding charts and buttons to compile worksheets, Masquerade provided this feature long before Excel did, but the way it's implemented in version 1.1 of Masquerade doesn’t work with Excel 3.0 worksheets.

Because Masquerade is a full-featured spreadsheet program, however, you can bypass the compatibility problems with Excel 3.1 by creating worksheets from scratch within Masquerade, But not surprisingly. you won't find Masquerade's spreadsheet-program features to be on a par with those of Excel.

Applications compiled with Masquerade let you lock your code away in a form that can't be read by prying eyes. You can hide worksheet formulas, and data saved by Masquerade-generated applications contains only values. As a result, users can enter data, recalculate, print, and save documents, but they can't overwrite cell formulas. An encryption scheme also helps you make your work secure.

In addition to touting Masquerade's low cost and tamperproof formulas, Night Diamonds claims that another benefit of compiling spreadsheet applications from worksheets is that users can gel going faster than if they had to learn a full-blown spreadsheet program. And it's true — support staffers shouldn't have to be spreadsheet jocks to use a template. But Masquerade is not unique in this area; a well-designed Excel application can deliver the same degree of user-insulation.

Masquerade does let you do some things to your worksheets that Excel doesn't. For example, you can place macro code directly into a worksheet rather than into a separate macro sheet. But this can be dicey business, as any Lotus 1-2-3 veteran knows. If users are allowed to insert rows in the wrong place, you run the risk of fracturing important macros.

Because Masquerade does not support all of Excel's commands and functions, you may encounter some difficulty when you convert existing Excel spreadsheets to Masquerade before compiling them. Masquerade reads SYLK and text-only files, which means that some worksheet elements can get lost in the translation. Masquerade conversions would he greatly simplified if the program could read Excel's proprietary file format directly.

In addition, creating check boxes and radio buttons with Masquerade is cumbersome. Masquerade doesn't provide a graphics editor, so you must use commands to specify button type and location. By contrast, Excel’s dialog-box editor makes it easy to design dialog boxes that contain check boxes, radio buttons, and dropdown lists, because you get a precise preview of what the dialog box will look like. Placing charts on worksheets is more awkward in Masquerade than in Excel 3.0, Masquerade applications are also limited to a single window, which may be a problem for some developers.

The Bottom Line

If you're looking for a low-cost way to create and distribute spreadsheet applications of low-to-moderate complexity, Masquerade may be a worthwhile investment. On the other hand, if you're hooked on the latest and greatest Excel 3.0 features, you're probably better off developing applications with Excel. There's no telling how long the wait may be for a Masquerade update that supports your favorite Excel 3.0 features.

Benjamin, Louis E., Jr. (March 1992). Masquerade. MacUser. (pgs. 52, 54).

Download Masquerade for Mac

Architecture

Motorola 68K

Compatibility notes

Emulating this? It could probably run under: Basilisk II