KeyDown/PowerPoint/Excel

[Jimm Burton]

I've been asked to do a project for a non-profit organization. They conduct
an annual auction to raise money for their cause.

I've done a PowerPoint presentation for them that works as expected. About
half way through they do a bid to raise money for certain projects around the
state. They want to have a thermometer show the progress toward the goal.
Fairly easy in Excel to do a graph that updates the progress and looks okay.
I created a Linked worksheet object in PowerPoint 2003 to show the graph.

Since there is going to be a rash of folks bidding at one time, I'd like to
have keyDown events work so that if I hit the '1' key, it updates the Excel
2003 by $1000, '2' key - $2500 and such.

My real issue:
1) Can I update Excel while PP is the active window?
2) Do the keyDown events 'have' to be on a form control (or can I hide the
form?)?
3) What other things should I be asking and be weary of?

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

I've been asked to do a project for a non-profit organization. They conduct
an annual auction to raise money for their cause.

I've done a PowerPoint presentation for them that works as expected. About
half way through they do a bid to raise money for certain projects around the
state. They want to have a thermometer show the progress toward the goal.
Fairly easy in Excel to do a graph that updates the progress and looks okay.
I created a Linked worksheet object in PowerPoint 2003 to show the graph.

Since there is going to be a rash of folks bidding at one time, I'd like to
have keyDown events work so that if I hit the '1' key, it updates the Excel
2003 by $1000, '2' key - $2500 and such.

My real issue:
1) Can I update Excel while PP is the active window?
2) Do the keyDown events 'have' to be on a form control (or can I hide the
form?)?
3) What other things should I be asking and be weary of?

If you're talking about keydown events in PowerPoint, there are none.
You can assign macros to run on mouseclicks or mouseovers of any shape on a
slide, though.

You could keep a running total in a global or static variable and update it by
eg. $1000 when you click the $1000 button (which triggers a macro behind the
scenes).

As far as the graph, draw a rectangle and let its width be determined by the
ratio of the running total to goal. That is, if running total = 50% of goal,
set the rectangle's width to 50% of the slidewidth (or whatever width 100% would
represent)



--
Steve Rindsberg, PPT MVP
PPT FAQ: www.pptfaq.com
PPTools: www.pptools.com
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Apologies for the delayed response.
Just back from PowerPoint Live 2004
Had a great time, learned a lot
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