Elegant way to highlight chart data series in Excel - vba

Question

I want to outline the chart data range source(s) in a table, in much the same way that the GUI will outline a range in blue if the chart data series is clicked. The user can choose various chart views and the range highlight colours for each data series need to match those displayed in the chart.
For the record, here are the methods I considered:
Parse the chart series values string and extract the data range
Do a lookup on a table that stores information on the ranges and the colours to be used
In the end I went with option 2 as is seemed easier to implement and to properly manage the colours I would probably have to store them for method 1 anyway, negating its benefits.
The highlight procedure is called from the Worksheet_Change event, a lookup is done on the chart name, the ranges and colours pulled from the table and then the cell formatting is carried out. The limitation of this method is that the range/colour data for each new chart view must be pre-calculated. This isn't much of a problem for my current implementation, but my be a limiting factor in future use where the charts might be more dynamic.
So although I've got a version of this working fine, I'm sure there must be a more elegant way of achieving this.
Any suggestions?

Answer 1

Edit:
OK, this seems to handle more cases better. The triggering code is the same, but here is new code for the module:
Function SeriesRange(s As Series) As Range
Dim sf As String, fa() As String
sf = s.Formula
sf = Replace(sf, "=SERIES(", "")
If sf = "" Then
Set SeriesRange = Nothing
Exit Function
End If
fa = Split(sf, ",")
Set SeriesRange = Range(fa(2))
End Function
Sub x(c As Chart)
Dim sc As Series
Dim sr As Range
If SeriesRange(c.SeriesCollection(1)) Is Nothing Then
Exit Sub
End If
Set sr = SeriesRange(c.SeriesCollection(1))
sr.CurrentRegion.Interior.ColorIndex = xlNone
For Each sc In c.SeriesCollection
If sc.Interior.Color > 1 Then
SeriesRange(sc).Interior.Color = sc.Interior.Color
ElseIf sc.Border.ColorIndex > 1 Then
SeriesRange(sc).Interior.Color = sc.Border.Color
ElseIf sc.MarkerBackgroundColorIndex > 1 And sc.MarkerBackgroundColorIndex < 57 Then
SeriesRange(sc).Interior.ColorIndex = sc.MarkerBackgroundColorIndex
ElseIf sc.MarkerForegroundColorIndex > 1 And sc.MarkerForegroundColorIndex < 57 Then
SeriesRange(sc).Interior.ColorIndex = sc.MarkerForegroundColorIndex
Else
MsgBox "Unable to determine chart color for data series " & sc.Name & " ." & vbCrLf _
& "It may help to assign a color rather than allowing AutoColor to assign one."
End If
Next sc
End Sub
/Edit
This is probably more barbaric than elegant, but I think it does what you want. It involves your first bullet point to get the range from the Series object, along with a sub to run through all the Series objects in the SeriesCollection for the chart. This is activated on Chart_DeActivate. Most of this code is jacked - see comments for sources.
In a module:
Function SeriesRange(s As Series) As Range
Dim sf As String, fa() As String
Dim i As Integer
Dim result As Range
sf = s.Formula
sf = Replace(sf, "=SERIES(", "")
fa = Split(sf, ",")
Set SeriesRange = Range(fa(2))
End Function
Sub x(c As Chart)
Dim sc As Series
Dim sr As Range
Set sr = SeriesRange(c.SeriesCollection(1))
sr.CurrentRegion.Interior.ColorIndex = xlNone
For Each sc In c.SeriesCollection
SeriesRange(sc).Interior.Color = sc.Interior.Color
Next sc
End Sub
In the ThisWorkbook object module:
' Jacked from C Pearson http://www.cpearson.com/excel/Events.aspx '
Public WithEvents CHT As Chart
Private Sub CHT_Deactivate()
x CHT
End Sub
Private Sub Workbook_Open()
Set CHT = Worksheets(1).ChartObjects(1).Chart
End Sub

Answer 2

Have you tried using Conditional Formatting?