Excel VBA Timer Keeps Stopping - vba

Question

I currently have a macro that when i click anywhere on the userform, a picturebox is moved to the left. i have added a timer into this so that it will always keep going left after the first form click. The problem is that the picturebox does move to the left, but only once. After, nothing happens. This is my code so far:
Private Sub UserForm_MouseUp(ByVal Button As Integer, ByVal Shift As Integer, ByVal X As Single, ByVal Y As Single)
Call PlayerMoving
End Sub
Public Sub PlayerMoving()
Player1.Left = Player1.Left + 5
Call StartTimer
End Sub
Sub StartTimer()
Application.OnTime Now + TimeValue("00:00:01"), "PlayerMoving"
End Sub
Like i mentioned before, after the first move, nothing else happens. I don't know why. i have also tried a do while loop like this:
Public Sub PlayerMoving()
do while SOME_STATEMENT_HERE
Player1.Left = Player1.Left + 5
Call StartTimer
loop
End Sub

Answer 1

Great question! The answer for this lies with the Application.OnTime function. It is designed to call procedures that are in regular modules, not class objects like forms. In other words the OnTime function can't find your PlayerMoving sub because it is in your form's class instead of in a regular module.
To correct this, you can simply add the following wrapper function in a regular VBA Module:
Public Sub MoveMyPlayer()
UserForm1.PlayerMoving
End Sub
Then change your OnTime call to schedule the MoveMyPlayer function that resides in the regular module:
Public Sub StartTimer()
Application.OnTime Now + TimeValue("00:00:01"), "MoveMyPlayer"
End Sub
Also keep in mind that your code should have a way to stop the timer when it is finished. You probably want to add another function to your form, and call it when you are ready to stop moving the image:
Public Sub CancelTimer()
Application.OnTime Now, "MoveMyPlayer", , False
End Sub
Hope that helps!
Adam

Answer 2

Make sure that these are in an ordinary module (not the User Form module). Modify to use your form's Name in case it differs from UserForm1:
Public timerOn As Boolean
Public Sub PlayerMoving()
UserForm1.Player1.Left = UserForm1.Player1.Left + 5
Call StartTimer
End Sub
Sub StartTimer()
If timerOn Then
Application.OnTime Now + TimeValue("00:00:01"), "PlayerMoving"
End If
End Sub
In your UserForm module:
Sub UserForm_Activate()
Player1.Left = 0 'Set the initial position if desired
Module1.timerOn = False '## Modify to the module name
End Sub
Private Sub UserForm_MouseUp(ByVal Button As Integer, ByVal Shift As Integer, ByVal X As Single, ByVal Y As Single)
Module1.timerOn = True
Call PlayerMoving
End Sub
Sub UserForm_Terminate()
Module1.timerOn = False
End Sub
There may be a better/more refined way to handle this, but it is what I came up with relatively quickly.
So we create a boolean variable which determines whether to keep the "timer" looping. We set it to false when the form unloads and also make sure to reset the Player1.Left when you re-activate the form, otherwise it may "disappear".
Then, we can simply toggle this switch as needed.