I’ve been on a real rollover kick lately. I’m really trying to figure out if it can be useful. Earlier today I started making a Periodic Table of Elements using Excel. I employed the rollover technique to allow the user to gain information about an element simply by rolling over a cell. Well, for some reason, I couldn’t stop there. So what was meant to be a small project ballooned into something larger. Unfortunately, my sticking to good coding practice didn’t keep up with craving to do more. So what I present to you below isn’t really a polished product. If you poke through the named ranges and the rollover indexes, you’ll probably see that I add and subtract one to them somewhat randomly (a cheap trick – this is due to my trying to reconcile the table copied from Wikipedia with my indices).
As you can see below (sorry for the graininess of the recorder–be sure to download it to get the full effect), you can not only gain information about an element but you can also toggle on and off different element groupings.
If you want to “crack” the file, the first thing you’ll need to do is reset the ScrollArea (Click on a cell. Go to the Developer tab, click Properties. Delete the reference in the ScrollArea box.). Then just unhide everything.
Good luck.
Periodic Table.xlsm
Update –
Reader Dario found an error in the spreadsheet (see the comments) – this is the result of some carelessness and cheap tricks on my part. An updated version will be released tonight. In the meantime however, you can still poke around the file :).
Another Update –
I’ve since fixed the bug described in the reader comments. If you find anything else, let me know!
Comments (15)
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Is there a bug or is it just a functionality or lack thereof that if you hover over the cells from left to right that it skips one. From right to left it doesn't skip any.
Thanks for pointing that out to me. That is indeed an error – the result of my using cheap tricks instead of good programming practices. I've since fixed the problem – however, I am not able to upload the new file while at work. Tonight the new file will be uploaded in its place.
Man this is sick!! Really the coolest thing I've ever seen in Excel! Great job getting everything to work!
Nice work! This is fantastico 🙂
Still clicking and hovering around in total amazement! This VBA starter here just got a reminder he's still got a long, looong way to go. :p
Thanks – I'm glad you enjoyed it!
Really, really nice. Is there an explanation anywhere on what you did. How would I go about modifying the overall structure, if I wanted to highlight different portions of a worksheet, nothing in particular in mind at this point.ThanksAl
Sorry, I never really completed the tutorial for this. However, you might find these tutorials helpful: https://optionexplicitvba.blogspot.com/2011_04_01_archive.html As well, you can go snooping through the file – I'm available by email to answer specific questions 🙂
Jordan,Congrats on a truly remarkable work ..!!!A great inspiration for many of us …James
A very nice functionality…. Would it be easy to have a version where the extra info is displayed when you click on an element, instead of hovering over it?
Hi Jordan
I really like it. Would be possible to have the extra information display when you click on a cell with the element, not on hover?
Sure. It’s probably easier to do that in fact! Try this tutorial by Chandoo – it should be fairly adaptable: http://chandoo.org/wp/2012/05/09/interactive-sales-chart-in-excel/
Can you re-post the file? I’d love to check it out! (link no longer working)
+1 for repost the file. I want to do something with exact same idea, but I don`t have Excel knowledge for this (yet). Playing with your file would be awesome.
Something weird has been going on with my host and the file hasn’t been coming up. email me jpo645 (at) gmail if you’d like to get a copy.