Windows 7 Enterprise 64 Improving Sheet Selection

Today's author: Sam Radakovitz, a Plan Supervisor around the Excel crew that enjoys producing VBA applications in Excel. ago I received a query by using electronic mail asking if we could modify the 'grid variety color' in Excel. Or at the very least I described as it 'grid variety color', it's mainly what the cells glimpse like once you pick out a block or numerous blocks of them: can see,windows 7 Home Basic x86, the color is often a bit light and difficult for some folks to view, certainly on a laptop computer if you're looking at it through the wrong angle. Sorry to say, in Excel 2007 you can't honestly improve the colour of the assortment. You chosen to get capable to alter the 'Selected Items' coloration from the Windows physical appearance settings but that doesn't get the job done with Excel 2007. That is a thing we're looking to tackle inside Excel … but till then I desired to strive and give you an add-in resolution. I tried using a few remedies and I was not 100% powerful with either try, but probably a code savvy blog page reader can select up in which I left off and complete the undertaking. Styles strategy was to utilize OfficeArt styles to make the collection. It really is really simple to do code wise: you receive a assortment alter event, you loop by using each area in the selection and drop a shape on it: the shape and inset it a bit during the selection so the drag fill is still attainable, then pick a darker color and make it a bit transparent. I converted this into an add-in and it absolutely was great to go … but feature creep sets in and I initiate thinking of the various important things I can do. In quick, I extra some possible choices and put together a ribbon entry level to control them: an alternative around the menu to flip on/off the choice add-in, a shade chooser,Windows 7 Enterprise 64, transparency handle,Windows 7 Home Basic Key, and some further information and facts you’re able to screen inside collection like the count of cells (totally different the count within the status bar btw) and deal with. So now the variety looks like: was playing close to, I uncovered among my favorite points to carry out is always to make the selection colour a random colour … not sure why it truly is so entertaining, but I could not discontinue choosing points just after enabling the preference: helpful 'feature creep' merchandise is definitely the capability to set a system and have it evaluated on every single selection, then return the outcomes to your text inside variety. It truly is the "custom formula…" menu merchandise in the picture previously mentioned. For an illustration: Inside photograph below, I design a 'countif' method counting the quantity of times 'Sam' is while in the collection, the system I type in is: Sams: " & countif([selection],"sam") part is definitely the part replaced with the address with the active assortment. The final result: a shape is an exciting idea … but it isn't a 100% win for two main reasons … and some other smaller ones, but I'll speak towards the ones I think are deal-breakers: the assortment occasion fires often, and we are developing a shape with the active sheet, this kills the Undo stack … and people need their Undo stacks,Cheap Office Professional Plus 2007! Perhaps one day, we'll have the ability to write code and not blow away the Undo stack, but until finally then, this is bad bad bad. click a shape, I can catch the left click no problem, but the right click isn't catchable, and puts the form into edit mode. I've altered the left click on the shape to show the right click menu by sending a mouse click to Excel, but that isn't enough. I *thought* I had a function about for this … my plan was to produce an ActiveX label manage over the form and make the label transparent, but catch the clicks since the label has a left and right mouse button events … but I couldn't get the label created w/o blowing away my global variables … and then it didn't surface the events as it should. Maybe anything I was doing incorrect, but if someone gets that working, please let me know! Userform strategy didn't get too far,Buy Office 2007 Key, but I think its superior in that it addresses the two deal-breakers previously mentioned. My plan was to have an add-in make a modeless and unclick-able form, which would then move with your selection in Excel. Since you cannot click it, your mouse commands do the trick great … and we aren't adjust factors that cause the UNDO stack to get blow away. I got the form to get unclick-able and transparent, but the big problem was positioning and sizing the form: and size in the shape alternative (the first tactic) was uncomplicated since we're using the grid coordinates to position the shape, and the top/left of a range may be the same for the form. For the form, we're using the screen positioning, so some translation has to happen between the grid position and the form position. There are some functions that are supposed to help with this, but they don't do the job as I would expect. An Internet search turns up some folks who have figured it out, but it can be not trivial at all and at the moment I don't have the time to research it further. words are accessible for download; see the links at the end of this article. If you are amongst the code savvy readers who wants to alter the add-ins, by all means download it and shoot us a mail and tell us about what you did! Also, if you are reading this and have an idea or any comments on the add-ins or Excel grid selection in general, don't hesitate to shoot us a e mail or post a comment.