I'm using DoEvents to force an update of a progress indicator in the status bar (or in some cell in the sheet) as in the example code below. But the screen doesn't refresh, or stops refreshing at some point. The task eventually completes but the progress bar is useless.
Why won't DoEvents "do the events"? What else can I do to force a screen update?
Edit: I'm using Excel 2003 on Windows XP.
This is a follow up to an earlier question; thanks to Robert Mearns for his answer and the sample code below.
Sub ProgressMeter()
Dim booStatusBarState As Boolean
Dim iMax As Integer
Dim i As Integer
iMax = 100
Application.ScreenUpdating = False
''//Turn off screen updating
booStatusBarState = Application.DisplayStatusBar
''//Get the statusbar display setting
Application.DisplayStatusBar = True
''//Make sure that the statusbar is visible
For i = 1 To iMax ''// imax is usually 30 or so
fractionDone = CDbl(i) / CDbl(iMax)
Application.StatusBar = Format(fractionDone, "0%") & " done..."
''// or, alternatively:
''// statusRange.value = Format(fractionDone, "0%") & " done..."
''// Some code.......
DoEvents
''//Yield Control
Next i
Application.DisplayStatusBar = booStatusBarState
''//Reset Status bar display setting
Application.StatusBar = False
''//Return control of the Status bar to Excel
Application.ScreenUpdating = True
''//Turn on screen updating
End Sub
I've found DoEvents is not always completely reliable. I would suggest trying two different things.
First, try placing the DoEvents call immediately after the Status Bar update (ie, before your Some code .... line).
If that does not work, I've found in some cases that using the Sleep API is a more reliable way to yield processor time. It's usually the first thing I try if DoEvents is not working as I'd like. You'll need to add the following line at the top of your module (outside of your function):
Declare Sub Sleep Lib "kernel32" (ByVal dwMilliseconds As Long)
Then add this line in place of, or in addition to, DoEvents:
Sleep 1 'This will pause execution of your program for 1 ms
You might try increasing the length of time you pause the program using sleep if 1 ms doesn't work.
I've found that calling DoEvents before updating the status bar, rather than after, yields more predictable/desirable results.
The code snippet from above would be:
fractionDone = CDbl(i) / CDbl(iMax)
DoEvents
Application.StatusBar = Format(fractionDone, "0%") & " done..."
Related
My Excel tool performs a long task, and I'm trying to be kind to the user by providing a progress report in the status bar, or in some cell in the sheet, as shown below. But the screen doesn't refresh, or stops refreshing at some point (e.g. 33%). The task eventually completes but the progress bar is useless.
What can I do to force a screen update?
For i=1 to imax ' imax is usually 30 or so
fractionDone=cdbl(i)/cdbl(imax)
Application.StatusBar = Format(fractionDone, "0%") & "done..."
' or, alternatively:
' statusRange.value = Format(fractionDone, "0%") & "done..."
' Some code.......
Next i
I'm using Excel 2003.
Add a DoEvents function inside the loop, see below.
You may also want to ensure that the Status bar is visible to the user and reset it when your code completes.
Sub ProgressMeter()
Dim booStatusBarState As Boolean
Dim iMax As Integer
Dim i As Integer
iMax = 10000
Application.ScreenUpdating = False
''//Turn off screen updating
booStatusBarState = Application.DisplayStatusBar
''//Get the statusbar display setting
Application.DisplayStatusBar = True
''//Make sure that the statusbar is visible
For i = 1 To iMax ''// imax is usually 30 or so
fractionDone = CDbl(i) / CDbl(iMax)
Application.StatusBar = Format(fractionDone, "0%") & " done..."
''// or, alternatively:
''// statusRange.value = Format(fractionDone, "0%") & " done..."
''// Some code.......
DoEvents
''//Yield Control
Next i
Application.DisplayStatusBar = booStatusBarState
''//Reset Status bar display setting
Application.StatusBar = False
''//Return control of the Status bar to Excel
Application.ScreenUpdating = True
''//Turn on screen updating
End Sub
Text boxes in worksheets are sometimes not updated
when their text or formatting is changed, and even
the DoEvent command does not help.
As there is no command in Excel to refresh a worksheet
in the way a user form can be refreshed, it is necessary
to use a trick to force Excel to update the screen.
The following commands seem to do the trick:
- ActiveSheet.Calculate
- ActiveWindow.SmallScroll
- Application.WindowState = Application.WindowState
Put a call to DoEvents in the loop.
This will affect performance, so you might want to only call it on each, say, 10th iteration.
However, if you only have 30, that's hardly an issue.
#Hubisans comment worked best for me.
ActiveWindow.SmallScroll down:=1
ActiveWindow.SmallScroll up:=1
Specifically, if you are dealing with a UserForm, then you might try the Repaint method. You might encounter an issue with DoEvents if you are using event triggers in your form. For instance, any keys pressed while a function is running will be sent by DoEvents The keyboard input will be processed before the screen is updated, so if you are changing cells on a spreadsheet by holding down one of the arrow keys on the keyboard, then the cell change event will keep firing before the main function finishes.
A UserForm will not be refreshed in some cases, because DoEvents will fire the events; however, Repaint will update the UserForm and the user will see the changes on the screen even when another event immediately follows the previous event.
In the UserForm code it is as simple as:
Me.Repaint
This worked for me:
ActiveWindow.SmallScroll down:=0
or more simply:
ActiveWindow.SmallScroll 0
I couldn't gain yet the survey of an inherited extensive code. And exact this problem bugged me for months. Many approches with DoEnvents were not helpful.
Above answer helped. Placeing this Sub in meaningful positions in the code worked even in combination with progress bar
Sub ForceScreenUpdate()
Application.ScreenUpdating = True
Application.EnableEvents = True
Application.Wait Now + #12:00:01 AM#
Application.ScreenUpdating = False
Application.EnableEvents = False
End Sub
This is not directly answering your question at all, but simply providing an alternative. I've found in the many long Excel calculations most of the time waiting is having Excel update values on the screen. If this is the case, you could insert the following code at the front of your sub:
Application.ScreenUpdating = False
Application.EnableEvents = False
and put this as the end
Application.ScreenUpdating = True
Application.EnableEvents = True
I've found that this often speeds up whatever code I'm working with so much that having to alert the user to the progress is unnecessary. It's just an idea for you to try, and its effectiveness is pretty dependent on your sheet and calculations.
On a UserForm two things worked for me:
I wanted a scrollbar in my form on the left. To do that, I first had to add an Arabic language to "Change administrative language" in the Language settings of Windows 10 (Settings->Time & Language->Change Administrative Language). The setting is actually for "Change the language of Non-Unicode Programs," which I changed to Arabic (Algerian). Then in the properties of the form I set the "Right to Left" property to True. From there the form still drew a partial ghost right scrollbar at first, so I also had to add an unusual timed message box:
Dim AckTime As Integer, InfoBox As Object
Set InfoBox = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
'Set the message box to close after 10 seconds
AckTime = 1
Select Case InfoBox.Popup("Please wait.", AckTime, "This is your Message Box", 0)
Case 1, -1
End Select
I tried everything to get the screen to redraw again to show the first text box in it's proper alignment in the form, instead of partially underneath or at least immediately adjacent to the scrollbar instead of 4 pixels to the right where I wanted it. Finally I got this off another Stackoverflow post (which I now can't find or I would credit it) that worked like a charm:
Me.Frame1.Visible = False
Me.Frame1.Visible = True
In my case the problem was in trying to make one shape visible and another one invisible on a worksheet.
This is my approach to "inactivating" a button [shape] once the user has clicked it. The two shapes are the same size and in the same place, but the "inactive" version has dimmer colors, which was a good approach, but it didn't work, because I could never get the screen to update after changing .visible = FALSE to = TRUE and vice versa.
None of the relevant tricks in this thread worked. But today I found a solution that worked for me, at this link on Reddit
Essentially you just call DoEvents twice in immediate succession after the code that makes the changes. Now why? I can't say, but it did work.
I've been trying to solve this Force a screen update on a Worksheet (not a userform) for many years with limited success with
doevents and scrolling etc.. This CH Oldie solutions works best with a slight mod.
I took out the Wait and reset ScreenUpdating and EnableEvents back to true.
This works office excel 2002 through to office 365
Sub Sheet1Mess(Mess1 As String)
Sheet1.Range("A6").Value = Mess1
ForceScreenUpdate
End Sub
Sub ForceScreenUpdate()
Application.ScreenUpdating = True
Application.EnableEvents = True
' Application.Wait Now + #12:00:01 AM#
Application.ScreenUpdating = False
Application.EnableEvents = False
Application.ScreenUpdating = True
Application.EnableEvents = True
End Sub
I have this piece of code which I would like to show and hide some Shape objects one by one, in order to make a little animation. However, nothing happens as the code executes, all images are shown by once when the code stops running.
Sub test()
For i = 1 To 4
Sheets("Game").Shapes("North" & i).Visible = True
Sleep 500
'Sheets("Game").Shapes("North" & i).Visible = False
'by setting it to false i'd like to achieve the animation effect
Debug.Print i
DoEvents
Next i
End Sub
DoEvents allows other code (e.g. Excel's own) to run and handle things like user clicking on another worksheet (which invokes any Worksheet.Change or Workbook.WorksheetChange handler)... or just repainting itself.
By invoking DoEvents once per loop, Excel doesn't get a chance to repaint between the visibility toggles: it's already busy running your loop.
So you need to toggle visibility on, let Excel repaint (DoEvents), sleep for your animation delay (500ms seems a tad slow IMO), then toggle visibility off and let Excel repaint again, i.e. invoke DoEvents one more time.
If the Game worksheet is in ThisWorkbook, then I'd warmly recommend you give it a CodeName - select it in the Project Explorer, then look at its properties (F4) and change its (Name) to, say, GameSheet.
This gives you a global-scope object variable so that you don't need to dereference the same worksheet twice per iteration - heck you could even dereference its Shapes collection only once:
Private Const ANIMATION_DELAY As Long = 100
Sub test()
With GameSheet.Shapes
For i = 1 To 4
Dim currentShape As Shape
Set currentShape = .Item("North" & i)
currentShape.Visible = True
DoEvents
Sleep ANIMATION_DELAY
currentShape.Visible = False
DoEvents
Debug.Print i
Next
End With
End Sub
Amended the code by setting DoEvents after toggling True and Falseand now it works:
Sub test()
For i = 1 To 4
Sheets("Game").Shapes("North" & i).Visible = True
DoEvents
Sleep 100
Sheets("Game").Shapes("North" & i).Visible = False
DoEvents
'by setting it to false i'd like to achieve the animation effect
Debug.Print i
Next i
End Sub
I'm trying to change the text displayed in the status bar in Excel 2015 using VBA. However, it doesn't seem to be updated. The message "Ready" remains there.
Function testStatusBar(delay As Long)
Dim progress As Long
For progress = 1 To delay
Application.StatusBar = "Progress: test ongoing ...." & (progress / delay) & "%"
DoEvents
Next progress
Application.StatusBar = False
End Function
I also tried many answers that where given here on this website for similar questions, however nothing worked. Is something wrong with the code or do I have to change some settings?
Your function works fine, but I suspect that you are calling it as a UDF from an Excel cell. UDFs are not permitted to update the status bar, or make any other changes to the Excel environment. (Basically, a UDF is allowed to return a value and that's it.)
If you called that function from a piece of VBA code, it works OK, providing you change it to return a value such as:
Function testStatusBar(delay As Long) As String
Dim progress As Long
For progress = 1 To delay
Application.StatusBar = "Progress: test ongoing ...." & (progress / delay) & "%"
DoEvents
Next progress
Application.StatusBar = False
testStatusBar = "Finished"
End Function
(You could then call it from other VBA code by saying myReturnValue = testStatusBar(200000)
Or change it to a Sub instead of a Function, i.e.
Sub testStatusBar(delay As Long)
Dim progress As Long
For progress = 1 To delay
Application.StatusBar = "Progress: test ongoing ...." & (progress / delay) & "%"
DoEvents
Next progress
Application.StatusBar = False
End Sub
(and then call it by saying testStatusBar 200000.)
I have some long processes that require notifications to the user at successive stages, so that he doesn't get to believe Excel has crashed down.
How could I display asynchronous messages to the user in Excel, using VBA ?
You can use the status bar in Excel to do this:
Application.StatusBar = "status message"
Here is an example on how to implement this: http://www.vbaexpress.com/kb/getarticle.php?kb_id=87
Below is the code from the site (added line break to make is easier to read):
Sub StatusBar()
Dim x As Integer
Dim MyTimer As Double
'Change this loop as needed.
For x = 1 To 250
'Dummy Loop here just to waste time.
'Replace this loop with your actual code.
MyTimer = Timer
Do
Loop While Timer - MyTimer < 0.03
Application.StatusBar = _
"Progress: " & x & " of 250: " & Format(x / 250, "Percent")
DoEvents
Next x
Application.StatusBar = False
End Sub
UPDATE:
I do want to add that updating the status bar will result in a sizable hit in performance (quite a bit actually), so you should only update it in approriate intervals. Here's an example of what I mean (I use MOD here to ensure we only increment each 1000):
Sub test()
Dim i As Long
Dim temp As String
For i = 1 To 1000000
temp = "testing 123, testing 123"
If i Mod 1000 = 0 Then
Application.StatusBar = "Processing " & i & "/1,000,000..."
End If
Next
Application.StatusBar = "Ready"
End Sub
Also note that you want to reset the text to "Ready" otherwise it'll be left as if it were in the loop.
I've stuck with Walkenbach's progress form for my addins
The following article has a number of ways of doing this: http://oreilly.com/pub/h/2607
I think the best bet for you would be to show a progress form. This can include a progress bar and text updates to reassure the user.
Something I once did was to create an extra tab called "Running".
After each time consuming loop, I add the following code with updated text information.
Although the text sometimes changes too fast, the changing color bar shows the user that the script is still running. You have to define AlertColor first with a value of 6.
Sheets("Running").Select 'Show the running page
Range("B18").Value = "Importing ABC......"
Cells(18, 2).Interior.ColorIndex = AlertColour
AlertColour = AlertColour + 1
If AlertColour > 8 Then AlertColour = 6
Application.ScreenUpdating = True
Application.ScreenUpdating = False
I don't know how far you want to go with your solution, but you can utilise RTD function. That way you could put a status message directly in the worksheet. But it would require development of a COM Automation server, which is not complicated (can be written in .NET or VB6 or C++ or Delphi), but causes problems once in production (deployment, support, code control etc.)
My Excel tool performs a long task, and I'm trying to be kind to the user by providing a progress report in the status bar, or in some cell in the sheet, as shown below. But the screen doesn't refresh, or stops refreshing at some point (e.g. 33%). The task eventually completes but the progress bar is useless.
What can I do to force a screen update?
For i=1 to imax ' imax is usually 30 or so
fractionDone=cdbl(i)/cdbl(imax)
Application.StatusBar = Format(fractionDone, "0%") & "done..."
' or, alternatively:
' statusRange.value = Format(fractionDone, "0%") & "done..."
' Some code.......
Next i
I'm using Excel 2003.
Add a DoEvents function inside the loop, see below.
You may also want to ensure that the Status bar is visible to the user and reset it when your code completes.
Sub ProgressMeter()
Dim booStatusBarState As Boolean
Dim iMax As Integer
Dim i As Integer
iMax = 10000
Application.ScreenUpdating = False
''//Turn off screen updating
booStatusBarState = Application.DisplayStatusBar
''//Get the statusbar display setting
Application.DisplayStatusBar = True
''//Make sure that the statusbar is visible
For i = 1 To iMax ''// imax is usually 30 or so
fractionDone = CDbl(i) / CDbl(iMax)
Application.StatusBar = Format(fractionDone, "0%") & " done..."
''// or, alternatively:
''// statusRange.value = Format(fractionDone, "0%") & " done..."
''// Some code.......
DoEvents
''//Yield Control
Next i
Application.DisplayStatusBar = booStatusBarState
''//Reset Status bar display setting
Application.StatusBar = False
''//Return control of the Status bar to Excel
Application.ScreenUpdating = True
''//Turn on screen updating
End Sub
Text boxes in worksheets are sometimes not updated
when their text or formatting is changed, and even
the DoEvent command does not help.
As there is no command in Excel to refresh a worksheet
in the way a user form can be refreshed, it is necessary
to use a trick to force Excel to update the screen.
The following commands seem to do the trick:
- ActiveSheet.Calculate
- ActiveWindow.SmallScroll
- Application.WindowState = Application.WindowState
Put a call to DoEvents in the loop.
This will affect performance, so you might want to only call it on each, say, 10th iteration.
However, if you only have 30, that's hardly an issue.
#Hubisans comment worked best for me.
ActiveWindow.SmallScroll down:=1
ActiveWindow.SmallScroll up:=1
Specifically, if you are dealing with a UserForm, then you might try the Repaint method. You might encounter an issue with DoEvents if you are using event triggers in your form. For instance, any keys pressed while a function is running will be sent by DoEvents The keyboard input will be processed before the screen is updated, so if you are changing cells on a spreadsheet by holding down one of the arrow keys on the keyboard, then the cell change event will keep firing before the main function finishes.
A UserForm will not be refreshed in some cases, because DoEvents will fire the events; however, Repaint will update the UserForm and the user will see the changes on the screen even when another event immediately follows the previous event.
In the UserForm code it is as simple as:
Me.Repaint
This worked for me:
ActiveWindow.SmallScroll down:=0
or more simply:
ActiveWindow.SmallScroll 0
I couldn't gain yet the survey of an inherited extensive code. And exact this problem bugged me for months. Many approches with DoEnvents were not helpful.
Above answer helped. Placeing this Sub in meaningful positions in the code worked even in combination with progress bar
Sub ForceScreenUpdate()
Application.ScreenUpdating = True
Application.EnableEvents = True
Application.Wait Now + #12:00:01 AM#
Application.ScreenUpdating = False
Application.EnableEvents = False
End Sub
This is not directly answering your question at all, but simply providing an alternative. I've found in the many long Excel calculations most of the time waiting is having Excel update values on the screen. If this is the case, you could insert the following code at the front of your sub:
Application.ScreenUpdating = False
Application.EnableEvents = False
and put this as the end
Application.ScreenUpdating = True
Application.EnableEvents = True
I've found that this often speeds up whatever code I'm working with so much that having to alert the user to the progress is unnecessary. It's just an idea for you to try, and its effectiveness is pretty dependent on your sheet and calculations.
On a UserForm two things worked for me:
I wanted a scrollbar in my form on the left. To do that, I first had to add an Arabic language to "Change administrative language" in the Language settings of Windows 10 (Settings->Time & Language->Change Administrative Language). The setting is actually for "Change the language of Non-Unicode Programs," which I changed to Arabic (Algerian). Then in the properties of the form I set the "Right to Left" property to True. From there the form still drew a partial ghost right scrollbar at first, so I also had to add an unusual timed message box:
Dim AckTime As Integer, InfoBox As Object
Set InfoBox = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
'Set the message box to close after 10 seconds
AckTime = 1
Select Case InfoBox.Popup("Please wait.", AckTime, "This is your Message Box", 0)
Case 1, -1
End Select
I tried everything to get the screen to redraw again to show the first text box in it's proper alignment in the form, instead of partially underneath or at least immediately adjacent to the scrollbar instead of 4 pixels to the right where I wanted it. Finally I got this off another Stackoverflow post (which I now can't find or I would credit it) that worked like a charm:
Me.Frame1.Visible = False
Me.Frame1.Visible = True
In my case the problem was in trying to make one shape visible and another one invisible on a worksheet.
This is my approach to "inactivating" a button [shape] once the user has clicked it. The two shapes are the same size and in the same place, but the "inactive" version has dimmer colors, which was a good approach, but it didn't work, because I could never get the screen to update after changing .visible = FALSE to = TRUE and vice versa.
None of the relevant tricks in this thread worked. But today I found a solution that worked for me, at this link on Reddit
Essentially you just call DoEvents twice in immediate succession after the code that makes the changes. Now why? I can't say, but it did work.
I've been trying to solve this Force a screen update on a Worksheet (not a userform) for many years with limited success with
doevents and scrolling etc.. This CH Oldie solutions works best with a slight mod.
I took out the Wait and reset ScreenUpdating and EnableEvents back to true.
This works office excel 2002 through to office 365
Sub Sheet1Mess(Mess1 As String)
Sheet1.Range("A6").Value = Mess1
ForceScreenUpdate
End Sub
Sub ForceScreenUpdate()
Application.ScreenUpdating = True
Application.EnableEvents = True
' Application.Wait Now + #12:00:01 AM#
Application.ScreenUpdating = False
Application.EnableEvents = False
Application.ScreenUpdating = True
Application.EnableEvents = True
End Sub