I would like to have a VBA macro pause its execution and wait for the user to press a key before continuing. Is there a quick way to accomplish this, or am I better off using a window popup?
A warning: In my experience, unless your VBA specifically includes DoEvents statements, Office applications are unresponsive while VBA is running.
If you only want to interrupt a process temporarily until the user is ready, then using a pop-up is by far the simplest method.
Adding something like the following would have the desired result:
Msgbox "Click to go on", , "Example"
The user would click to continue or could hit enter or space.
If you wanted a more specific pop-up, loading a modal userform (in Excel) or a modal form (in Access) from code will halt the suspend the calling code until the form is closed.
Honestly, I would resist including a pause unless it's absolutely necessary. Any unnecessary interuption is an annoyance and hinderance to efficiency. If you simply want to inform the user about what is happening you can update the screen to explain what the code is doing as it performs actions.
Related
I am currently working on a LabVIEW project and have found myself stuck on how to make a while loop exit when I press the abort (stop) button. For a simple while loop I understand how to do this - but the problem is that this while loop is nested inside of an event structure and I'm guessing that the button cannot be pressed while the loop is executing. Attached here is a picture of part of my code (that contains this specific event case which is causing me problems): To spend a little more time explaining what the problem is - I think the code is doing what I want it to do (namely output a set of commands in a repeated cycle with a wait timer) but I cannot stop the code mid cycle (pressing the abort button with my mouse does nothing - as in the button doesn't show it being pressed and the indicator shows no change, I also can't use any other functionality of my program during the cycle which I'm assuming is related). And I do not want to stop the LabVIEW program from running entirely - just the code inside the while loop pictured above. This is what the front panel is configured too for completeness:
Essentially what I want to happen is the while loop to execute when I press DWG and in the middle of the cycle be able to abort it. Sorry if my code seems a little messy. Additionally, I've tried the same code with a for loop originally (via a conditional terminal so it could stop early) and that didn't work either. Thanks for any help I appreciate it!
Your problem is that inside the event structure, by default the UI is frozen so no UI actions (keyboard/mouse/etc) are processed until you exit that frame.
Option 1. You can right click the Event Structure and select "Edit events handled by this case" dialog and then uncheck the "Lock panel" checkbox -- that will allow the UI to be live while you are in that frame. I do not recommend this solution generally unless you have an extremely simple user interface because it leads to the user being able to change controls without the events behind those controls being processed (not a good UI experience for users). But if the UI is simple enough, that works.
Option 2. You can create a user event that is the code you want inside your While Loop. When the Deg Wait Go button is pressed, use the "Generate User Event" node to trigger that event. Do the same thing in the user event case so that the event re-triggers itself if and only if the Abort button has not been pressed.
Option 3. Create a separate loop OUTSIDE your UI loop that does your processing with some sort of command queue running between the UI loop and that other loop. The other loop moves into various states at the request of the UI loop... it's the one that does nothing until it receives a "go" message and then keeps looping until it receives a "stop" message. You can Google "queued message handler" for extensive details of this solution. This is the most common solution for complex UI requirements, especially useful for separating concerns of the UI code from the execution code.
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 ...
I have code stuck.
It might be in an infinite loop.
Not sure.
Is there a way to break the program to stop at the current line of code that it is running on?
I'd like to avoid shutting down excel because I want to be able to catch where in the loop it is, and by going into the code, I will be able to tell how much processing was done. I would like to break into the code, if possible.
It is stuck on hour glass.
Ctrl+Break doesn't seem to work
Seems like the running code has hijacked all the quota that cpu is giving to excel.
If there is nothing I can do now, is there something in the future I can do to where I can more easily break into the code?
I'm thinking that an intermittent wait within a loop might be a feasible solution.
In the future, include a DoEvents inside the loop. It will run a little slower, but you will be able to use Ctrl+Break to stop it from running.
Create a progress dialog when entering the loop and include a Cancel button. Within your loop check for the Cancel signal/event. This also gives you some flexibility on how you react to the Cancel - you could stop the loop and display key information in a new dialog box (for example).
Basic steps to achieve what I have described (not necessarily the most elegant or the most re-useable, but simple enough for those of lesser experience):
create a modeless (not modal) Form with either suitable labels or a progressbar item (for
visual effect). Include a public property (Boolean) for Cancel (e.g.
boolCancel)
Place a button on form and onClick set boolCancel = True
In your main code, show the form just before your problem loop.
while in your loop you can update some label or progress bar on the
form so that you have a visual indication of whether the loop is
doing something of value or if it is now simply spinning its wheels.
How you do this depends on what your loop is doing.
Also while in your loop check your boolCancel value. If true then
display any state information you want and break from the loop.
If your loop ends normally, hide/unload the progress dialog.
This is a distilled form of a problem I'm having with a real application. Under certain circumstances, the initialization/activation code of a userform might result in the form losing its ability to correctly process tabs and enters: rather than switching between controls, these keys are passed to the controls themselves (even if they have TabKeyBehavior set to False). The simplest way I've found to systematically reproduce the problem is by having this at activation time:
Private Sub Userform_Activate()
Application.DisplayDocumentInformationPanel = True
End Sub
which seemingly causes Excel to "half-steal" the focus from the userform, so to say: the userform remains focused but tab/enter processing fails. The problem immediately goes away by switching to some external app and getting back to Excel (pressing ALT+TAB twice, for instance.)
Steps to reproduce the problem:
Download tabnotworking.xlsm.
Open tabnotworking.xslm.
Enable macros.
Click on the "Launch UserForm1" button.
UserForm1 is displayed and the textboxes accept input from the user, but tab/enter does not work as expected.
Press ALT+TAB twice or click on some external app and get back to the form: now tab processing works OK.
Once tab/enter processing has been restored, further usage of the form, including relaunching it, seems to work OK (most of the time). To reliably reproduce the problem again, close the book and start from step 2.
There are numerous references on the Internet to problems with tab processing seemingly related to this one, but no actual solution. Any clue on what's happening and how it could be solved? Thank you,
so basically I need to pause the macro code, wait for user input and then continue the rest of the code. I know that by using the "modeless userform", this can be done.
But the point now is that all the code after the userform popped up needed to written in the command button part (basically it is the userform own module). And because of that, all the initialization, all the variables that I still need has been wiped off.
So I am asking is there a way to pause in the middle of a vba code then, wait for user input, then continue the rest of the code
Thank you very much for your help
What do you mean as "user input"?
Standard input methods as MsgBox, InputBox or modal user forms do what you are asking;
"code after the userform popped up needed to"...
Instead of closing a form, hide it. Code continues and form data
still available;
Now, if you mean by "user input", manipulating workbook, you must go on events:
Example: Create a before user input macro and then place remaining code in a Worksheet_Change event.