Excel Applications

You may have heard the expression "When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail" (or something to that effect). Well, Excel VBA* is my hammer of choice. I have developed lots of different applications to make it easier to do my job in various places I worked, for our business Star Castle Fiber Mill as well as record keeping for volunteer positions. But I have also created some applications "just for fun", some of which are pretty bizarre.

I am offering them here for free download, if anyone wants to play with them. They are just for personal use. Please acknowledge the source if you share them with someone else.

By the way, in trying to research copyright issues, I discovered that just about any game you can imagine is already available on-line. So I can't imagine who would want these, except those of us who don't have access to high-speed internet, and/or who like to do things the old-fashioned way (with just a little bit of help from my friend (Excel)).

NOTE: These applications were not designed to work in the browser window. Although some of them may appear to work at first, the results are not entirely predictable. That is why a macro asks you to SAVE AS on your computer when you open it the first time. If you already did that, please do it once more, and then the dialog will go away. If you are concerned about security, you can be assured there are no viruses, because I am offering these on our reputable family business web site, and we obviously cannot risk our integrity.

*Excel and VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) are trademarks of Microsoft.

SUDOKU Checker This file allows you to replicate a Sudoku puzzle you already have (from a newspaper or magazine) by copying the clue numbers into the spreadsheet. You can then "pencil in" your answer guesses and/or hints into the empty squares, just like you would with the paper puzzle. The main thing it does for you is to check the completed (or partially complete) puzzle for any violation of Sudoku rules. I created it for myself, because sometimes I can't see what is right in front of me! The idea is to catch errors before they contribute to larger errors. There is a help screen to assist in using the buttons.

I also invite you to check out an interesting commentary about Sudoku as a metaphor for life at http://www.gpln.com/sudoku.htm.

Kakuro Checker This file allows you to replicate a Kakuro puzzle you already have (from a newspaper or magazine) by copying the puzzle layout and range value clues into the spreadsheet. Then you start entering your guesses. Whenever and as often as you are ready, it will evaluate your answers. About all it really does is check your answers against the range value clues and flag any ranges that do not add up to the range value. Color codes indicate whether the values in the range are high, low, or incomplete. For some of us, this saves a lot of time trying to keep track of it all.

DECODEAQUOTE This is another 'copy it from a newspaper or magazine' application. You enter the coded puzzle text, the clue letter, and the clue value, then start guessing. The main advantage over pencil and paper is that you can change a letter guess at any time and all the applicable places are changed for you.

SCRABBLE This was created mostly just to prove I could write it. You can play a complete game with it, doing just about anything you can do with real tiles and a board, but there is some clunkiness with only one player being able to see his tiles at a time. You can also use it with a real board and tiles and just use the application to keep score. I suppose you could play it long distance by emailing the updated file after each turn, though I've never tried it. If you wanted to, you could also play Solitaire Scrabble, by being more than one player yourself. (You just have to promise not to remember the "other" player's tiles!)
It's neither intuitive (easy) nor extremely difficult to play a game considering the limitations of Excel (and my imagination), but there is a fairly comprehensive Help feature. So if you want to try it, I recommend reading the whole Help document from start to finish before attempting to use it.
As far as I know the Scoring is accurate, however one time I thought I saw it make a mistake, but was never able to duplicate it or diagnose the problem (if there was one). So I guess you could say the scoring is at least 98% correct.

ANAGRAM All this does is allow you to create an anagram for any series of words or names. You use your own creativity to come up with the anagram. What it does is keep track of the letters you used, letters you did not yet use, and letters that you used illegally. That's all, folks - it is very basic and limited to those rare occasions where we just have to come up with an anagram! No help file, but easy to use.

HANGMAN Yes, HANGMAN! No collection would be complete without it. This is a two-person game: one types in the mystery phrase, then the other guesses letters until he gets the answer or you-know-what happens. (Actually it rarely happens, even with young kids, because they have 11 wrong guesses before it's all over!) In fact, it was designed for playing with kids. And no peeking while I type in the phrase! A very simple game (with no Help file), but it should be intuitive to use.

Non-game Excel applications I have found useful include a tool to list all the files in a directory. (As far as I know, this only works in Windows.) The list can then be sorted and filtered by different criteria. It can also list files from two different sources, such as a current folder and a backup file for comparisons. When the files are html source, I can also capture the html code from all the files in the list for analysis. I can also do similar things with VBA source code, but not automatically. These tools require more user knowledge, but if anyone is interested, send me an email.