Displaying A Progress Indicator
A companion file is available: Click here to downloadA common question among Excel developers is, How can I use a custom dialog box to display the progress of a lengthy macro?
This document describes how to create an attractive
Displaying A Progress Indicator
A companion file is available: Click here to downloadA common question among Excel developers is, How can I use a custom dialog box to display the progress of a lengthy macro?
This document describes how to create an attractive progress indicator with minimal effort.
Creating the UserForm
Follow the steps below to create the progress indicator UserForm.
- Insert a new UserForm and change its Caption to Progress.
- Add a Frame control and name it FrameProgress.
- Add a Label control inside of the Frame and name it LabelProgress. Remove the Label's caption, and make its background color red.
- Add another label (option) to describe what's going on.
- Adjust the form and controls so they look like this:
Creating the Event-handler subroutines
The trick here involves running a subroutine automatically when the dialog box is displayed. Since the Initialize event occurs before the dialog box is actually show, you must use the Activate event. Insert the following subroutine in the Code window for the UserForm. This subroutine simply calls the Main subroutine (stored in a VBA module) when the UserForm is displayed.
Private Sub UserForm_activate() Call Main End Sub
The Main subroutine is listed below. This demo routine simply inserts random numbers into the active worksheet. As it does so, it changes the width of the Label control and displays the percent completed in the Frame's caption. You will, of course, substitute your own subroutine. And you'll need to figure out how to determine the progress complete.
Sub Main()'Inserts random numbers on the active worksheet Dim Counter As Integer Dim RowMax As Integer, ColMax As Integer Dim r As Integer, c As Integer Dim PctDone As Single If TypeName(ActiveSheet) <> "Worksheet" Then Exit Sub Cells.Clear Application.ScreenUpdating = False Counter = 1 RowMax = 100 ColMax = 25 For r = 1 To RowMax For c = 1 To ColMax Cells(r, c) = Int(Rnd * 1000) Counter = Counter + 1 Next c PctDone = Counter / (RowMax * ColMax) With UserForm1.FrameProgress.Caption = Format(PctDone, "0%").LabelProgress.Width = PctDone * (.FrameProgress.Width - 10) End With'The DoEvents statement is responsible for the form updating DoEvents Next r Unload UserForm1 End Sub
Creating the start-up subroutine
All that's missing is a subroutine to display the dialog box. Enter the following subroutine in a VBA module.
Sub ShowDialog() UserForm1.LabelProgress.Width = 0 UserForm1.Show End Sub
How it works
When you execute the ShowDialog subroutine, the Label object's width is set to 0. Then the Show method of the UserForm1 object displays the dialog box. When the dialog box is displayed, its Activate event is triggered, which executes the Main subroutine. The Main subroutine periodically updates the width of the Label. Notice the DoEvents statement. Without this statement, changes to the Label are not visible. Before the subroutine ends, the last statement unloads the UserForm object.
This is definitely a slick technique, but you should be aware that it may
slow down your macro a bit due to the extra overhead of updating the progress
indicator. In many cases, however, it is not even noticeable.
Excel has a long history, and it continues to evolve and change. Consequently, the tips provided here do not necessarily apply to all versions of Excel.
In particular, the user interface for Excel 2007 (and later), is vastly different from its predecessors. Therefore, the menu commands listed in older tips, will not correspond to the Excel 2007 (and later) user interface.
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