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Ok, so I know I promised no more updates, but this one is too cool. Basically, I combined Andy Pope's 3d rotation tutorial with the rollover method. The result is a free-floating cube which you can rotate by passing your mouse over it. Here's a choppy-ish video of what's going on. I promise however that it run smoothly on your computer. The choppiness is a result of the video's frame rate.

The mechanism is similar the the election map and the details-on-demand graphs: the chart is placed on top of the hot spots to get the mouse's coordinates. In this case, the rollover pulls in the mouse's location and initiates a timer. The timer adjusts the rotation angles based on the mouse's location. Additionally, some fancy calculations in the timer process procedure give the rotation a "slowing down" effect. I urge you to open on the Visual Basic Editor and do some dissection, if you desire. Remember though, the Timer API is a bit finicky. Make sure to save often in case your Excel crashes while in the middle of your investigations.

The download file: Rotate Cube Rollover.xlsm

Have fun.

Author: Unknown Labels: Cube, Rollovers

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These last few months have been great to this humble blog - and to me, your humble blogger. We've received a lot of traffic, especially for posts concerning the rollover method (40k pageviews overall as of today!). Also, I got married in October! 

In pains me to tell you this, but I'm taking a break until next year (you probably already noticed my absence). In August, I signed on with Apress publishing to write a book about developing Excel applications and dashboards. I'll be honest with you - I'm woefully behind schedule, and I really need to catch up. Writing this book has been a dream of mine. So I really need to focus on it. 

In my last post, I said a tutorial on how I created the Election map would be forthcoming. At this rate, I'm not sure when that will be. Thankfully, Robert Mundigl of ClearlyAndSimply.com has written about the very same technique the Election map uses in his phenomenal article, Roll Over Tooltips and Web Actions on a Microsoft Excel Dashboard. I can't really thank Robert enough for this. His article is a pleasure to read (as are his other articles) with explanations that are thorough and thoughtful; certainly, they surpass anything I've ever written on the subject. So, if you haven't read Roll Over Tooltips and Web Actions on a Microsoft Excel Dashboard, please make your way there as soon as possible. 

Another person I need to mention is Bert van Zandbergen who has been my silent partner-in-crime concerning investigations into the rollover method. He has toyed and tampered with the rollover method producing spreadsheets that are different but always interesting. I mean, just take a look at these:

• Dynamic Circular Arrow
• Dynamic Half-Filled Circles

You can contact Bert at: klvzndbrgn (at) gmail.

Finally, the people I really need to thank are you, my readers. This blog wouldn't be what it is without you. 

I won't be gone forever. My facebook and twitter will be alive again soon. Make sure to check them out.

Oh yeah, and a happy holidays to everyone :)

Author: Unknown