Lesson 25 Creating Animation

Besides creating Excel 2010 VBA code for mathematical and financial calculations, it is also possible to create some fun applications in Excel 2010 VBA, including games and animation. Although professionals programmers might not be interested in writing such applications, it is worthwhile trying them out as a hobby and for personal satisfaction.

Animation can be achieved by changing the position of an object continuously using a looping sub procedure.

Two properties that are required to change the positions of the object are the Left and Top properties. The Left property specifies the distance between the left edge of the object in pixel from the left border of the screen and the Top property specifies the distance between the top edge of the object and the top border of the screen.The following code makes the object move from left to right then back to left again repeatedly until the user press the stop button. The reset button moves the object back to the starting position. You need to insert the image control into the spreadsheet in order for this code to work

The code

Private Sub CmsStart_Click()

repeat:With VBAProject.Sheet1.Image1
 .Left = .Left + 1
DoEvents
 If .Left > 200 Then .Left = 1
End With
GoTo repeat

End Sub

The code for the reset button is

Private Sub CmdReset_Click()
With VBAProject.Sheet1.Image1
 .Left = 0
End With
End Sub

*The above code reset the position of the image to the far left

If you wish to move the object up and down, change the above code by replacing the property Left to Top, the code is as follows:

Private Sub StartButton_Click()
repeat:With VBAProject.Sheet1.Image1
.Top= .Top+ 1
DoEvents
If .Top> 200 Then .Top = 1
End WithGoTo repeat
End Sub

If you wish to make the object move diagonally, then use the properties Top and Left at the same time, as follows:

Private Sub StartButton_Click()
repeat:
With VBAProject.Sheet1.Image1

.Top = .Top + 5
.Left = .Left + 5

DoEvents
If .Top > 200 Then .Top = 1
If .Left > 200 Then .Left = 1

End With

GoTo repeat
End Sub