Скачать или смотреть Grouping Shapes in VBA Without Name References

Learn how to group an array of `Shapes` in Excel VBA by their IDs, avoiding name references in your code for more efficient shape management.
---
This video is based on the question https://stackoverflow.com/q/65400944/ asked by the user 'George Robinson' ( https://stackoverflow.com/u/9242492/ ) and on the answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/65406251/ provided by the user 'Ambie' ( https://stackoverflow.com/u/2970789/ ) at 'Stack Overflow' website. Thanks to these great users and Stackexchange community for their contributions.

Visit these links for original content and any more details, such as alternate solutions, latest updates/developments on topic, comments, revision history etc. For example, the original title of the Question was: Grouping an Array of Shapes

Also, Content (except music) licensed under CC BY-SA https://meta.stackexchange.com/help/l...
The original Question post is licensed under the 'CC BY-SA 4.0' ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... ) license, and the original Answer post is licensed under the 'CC BY-SA 4.0' ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... ) license.

If anything seems off to you, please feel free to write me at vlogize [AT] gmail [DOT] com.
---
Grouping Shapes in Excel VBA Without Using Name References

When working with Excel VBA, you may often find yourself dealing with shapes like rectangles, circles, and lines on a worksheet. One common task is to group these shapes together to manage them more easily. However, you might encounter a challenge when trying to group an array of Shapes without relying on their .Name strings. In this guide, we’ll explore how to achieve this effectively using their unique IDs instead.

Understanding the Problem

In the original code, the attempt to group shapes by their IDs failed because Excel VBA requires a range of shape indexes, not IDs. The issue arises when you try to reference shapes that might already be part of a group or nested groups. This makes it impossible to get the correct index directly from the sheet level without additional logic.

Why Avoid Using Name Strings?

Using .Name strings for referencing shapes is generally not ideal in VBA because:

Uniqueness: Shape names may not be unique, leading to potential conflicts.

Maintenance: If the names change, the code breaks.

Efficiency: Indirect referencing can slow down performance in larger documents.

The Solution

To group shapes without referencing their names, we can follow these steps:

Step 1: Create a Function to Group Shapes

We’ll create a function that accepts an array of shapes and performs the following:

Collect the IDs of the shapes.

Navigate up the hierarchy to find the top-level shape objects.

Retrieve their indexes in the worksheet.

Use these indexes to create a ShapeRange that can be grouped.

Here’s a detailed breakdown of the function:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

Step 2: Testing the Function

You can verify if the function works properly with the following testing subroutine:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

This subroutine creates an array of shapes, some of which may already be grouped, and calls the GroupShapes function to group them together.

Conclusion

By using the shape IDs instead of their names, you can create a more robust and maintainable VBA code for grouping shapes. This method not only avoids potential errors associated with name string conflicts but also contributes to more efficient management of shapes within your Excel workbooks. Give it a try in your next Excel project and experience the difference!