Auto run good Macro before User Macro? [duplicate] - vba

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Closed 10 years ago.
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How to protect cells in Excel but allow these to be modified by VBA script
any chance to run a specific marco [GodMarco] before any marco [UserMarco] which fired by user?
CASE I
I have a worksheet, which have lots button to do different action by user.
I have normal cells to let user input data, and have hidden cells to do the dirty work.
And since user may user [arrow] or [tab] to circle through, I have to protect the sheet.
And made them not selectable.
And now VBA stopped.
I know I can add vba codes to unprotect and protect again and again, but I think it is stupid to add them to each marco.
So can it be something like GODMODE that before each marco fired by user, run GODMARCO1, and after user marco, run GODMARCO2?
[DONE, THANK YOU.] CASE II
Or can we get some cells not selectable by user but selectable by VBA?
THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

Open the VBA window (Alt + F11). In the property window of the sheet you want to protect you will see the "ScrollArea" property which will limit the area that can be selected by the user, set it to whatever range you want to make accessible to your users.

Related

Pause VBA Macro to allow manual input of data

I have an Excel workbook macro that opens another workbook and starts copying data into it and formatting it. At one point in the process, I want the macro to pause and let the user manually enter data into the target workbook and then resume processing.
MsgBox, Application.Wait(), and Sleep are all application modal and will not let the user update anything in the other workbook while they are executing.
I found this while searching for a solution. It gets me halfway there in that I can manipulate the other sheet but only with my mouse. No keyboard presses get sent to the workbook.
Any ideas on getting all the way there?
I was thinking that I could just have two macros. The user would run one, then perform his manual tasks, then run the other. This appears to work but I would have to convert everything to globals so hopefully, someone has a better idea.
Thanks!
Depending on the macro being run to copy and paste, is the main concern with user intervention during execution of the macro getting the active cell/sheet (if being used) back to being active after the user manipulates something.
I'd recommend storing the active cell/sheet address in a variable prior to the Application.Wait() and then setting the active cell to that stored value on resume.
Without a posting of what your macro is doing though, it is hard to know if this suggestion helps your current situation.

Using Excel while macros are running

There are a half-dozen answers to this. "Open a second instance" "Have a pause" Etc. I'm not looking for that.
I'm looking for the user of the workbook to be able to manipulate the workbook while the macro is running. I've seen this working before, where the user could scroll around, change tabs, even add and remove data, all while the macro was running. Unfortunately, I couldn't get permission to look at the code (And committing CFAA violations ins't my cup of tea), so I have no idea how they did it.
How can you enable a user to edit the workbook as macros are running? For a specific example, I have Conway's Game of Life running. Users select cells to flip live/dead, then can run a macro to run the entire thing. I think it'd be nice for users to be able to change cells as the macro is running. (which is a second on select macro)
Thank you
Sorry just reread the question. I wouldn't expect the permutation to run for very long - not long enough to interrupt really.
But if it does, then the advice about using lots of DoEvents stands.
The other option is that you can use the OnTime event to have a "heartbeat"
VBA Macro On Timer style to run code every set number of seconds, i.e. 120 seconds
You can set the timer to say 3 seconds. Every time the OnTime event occurs you do one step of your permutation. In the three seconds in between they can edit.
Refactor your macro to use Events. In which case, you would have a series of event handlers (instead of one monolithic macro) to respond to various triggers. This is assuming that the macro is influenced by what the user is doing in the worksheet.
One way of (sort of) doing this is to use a Modeless Userform (UserForm.Show vbModeless)
The user form stays visible but the VBA stops running when the form is shown and the user can then interact with Excel. Then when the user clicks a button on the form the code behind the button starts running again.
So in reality the user is either interacting with Excel or interacting with the form ...

Run-time Error '32809' and Active X controls changed name

Huge problem here. I sent an excel form (a workbook with several sheets, thousands of active x controls and many many macros) to several people that they need to fill and return to me. Only one of the completed form I received is now completely impossible to use. All active X controls have changed name. If I select one I see the old name, but if I click on it the macro doesn't start and if I try to see its code it opens a new empty Macro with the new control name_click (Ex: a button called cmd_button1 opens a Macro called cmd_button2_click). When I start the Macro in VBA, I get the Run-time Error '32809' every time the code wants to unprotect sheets or to change the visible value of a sheet.
I looked on other posts and every solution I found would require a huge amount of work. What happened? Is there an easy solution to this?
Thank you.
I saved the workbook in .xlsx and copy/pasted all my macros back, transfered the forms and modules back then saved it back to .xlsm and now the buttons call the macros and no run time errors occur anymore.

Is it possible to undo a macro action? [duplicate]

This question already has answers here:
Building Undo Into an Excel VBA Macro
(3 answers)
Closed last year.
I want to know if we can undo the macro action by any chance. I am using the excel sheet as a form and I am having a submit button(Macro) which takes the sum of counts of the sheet(based on the form input) and stores it in the next sheet.
My problem is, if we press the submit button without completing it or if we press it twice, the sum which I store in the next sheet, becomes inaccurate. If there a way we can undo the macro actions in excel? I tried using the undo button, but it didn't work for macros. Is there a way we can undo it?
Can we add another macro which would undo the previous macro's work?
I agree with all the commenters who've suggested that the best practice is to validate the starting conditions and/or input values before allowing the macro to make any changes. However, validation is often very complex and totally impractical in a lot of "we need it now" situations.
Here are two very easy things I can suggest:
1) Have the macro save the workbook before any changes are made, but not save the workbook after the changes have been made. This way, if you see something went wrong, you can just close and reopen the workbook and you'll be back to where you were before the macro did whatever the macro does.
2) Have the macro save copies of any affected worksheets before taking any action, so, if things go wrong, you can revert (or create a macro to revert) back to the starting point.
The first option requires the least amount of code, just:
ThisWorkbook.Save
before letting the macro do whatever the macro does.
I frequently use this method when testing macros.
The second option is a little more complex, but not much:
ThisWorkbook.Worksheets("YourWorksheet").Copy(After:=ThisWorkbook.Worksheets("NameOfSheetYouWantItToAppearAfter")
Note that this will activate the copy. If necessary, you can reactivate the original worksheet like this:
ThisWorkbook.Worksheets("OriginalWorksheet").Activate
I hope that helps!

excel vba - only enable cell edits through code

I have an excel tool that gathers information from a user based on their login information. The information is stored in cells on one of the worksheets. If I wanted to lock these cells so they can't be updated manually, how can I go about doing that? If someone else logs in, obviously these cells would change. I hope to do it through VBA.
I only want to lock 6 cells... everything else should be editable...
Thanks
You can protect the worksheet with a password like this:
Private Sub Workbook_Open()
Sheets("sheetName").Protect Password:="YourPassword", UserInterfaceOnly:=True
End Sub
That will prevent users from manually making changes to the worksheet without entering the password. Your VBA code will still be able to make changes because you've set UserInterfaceOnly to True.
Note that users could easily view this password by navigating to the code through the Visual Basic editor. You can password protect the code as well, though: just right-click on the module, click on VBAProject Properties and go to the Protection tab.
See this page for more information: Excel VBA: Macro Code To Run Macros On Protected Worksheets & Sheets.
If these cells are the only ones on the sheet you want to protect, then just change the cell properties of the remaining cells by changing Locked property to false and leave the cells in question as Locked then protect the sheet using UserInterfaceOnly set to true (but realize that this doesn't work for all possible macro changes, so I usually avoid it.)
There are other methods that could work, but I think this is the best solution for you. If not, please add a comment to let me know.