Connect 4! Pictures and macros

[freud1]

Hello all,

I've stumbled into a job I wish I hadn't,

I said I would design a Connect 4 game for my team at work and didn't realise just how difficult it was. I ave gathered all the images and now have no clue how to make the board change colour!

If you could have a look at the file and let me know any suggestions I would be very greatful!

thanks guys!

I cant attach the file i have made up because all the pictures make it over 200kb and too big to upload here,

i have put it here if you want to take a look :

http://www.mediafire.com/?ivzztbiwx4d

if not then any general advice on linking macros to make images change would be great!

Thanks!

[Leith Ross]

Hello freud1,

The problem with changing the color of the "slot" is the white circle is opaque. If you have access to a picture editor like Photoshop it is easy to make that area transparent. You can also do it using using Microsoft Photo Editor and Microsoft Paint, but it is a very slow process to do so. All you need is one and you can copy it. To change the color all you have to do is change the cell's color to match the user's selection. Deal with the transparency problem first then we can handle moving the dots.

Sincerely,
Leith Ross

[freud1]

Hi Leith,

Great idea about the opacity in the slots. would make a lot of sense to just use the cell formatting to change colours.

I have photoshop and i'm quite comfortable using it.

Here is my problem, I cannot get excel to make the centre of the slot transparent using the Picture Toolbar and the 'set transparent color' tool.

It will allow me to remove the blue slot but not the centre colour.

I have tried changing the centre colour,

making the centre colour blue and the slot another colour (would not allow me to make either opaque then,

tried saving as different kinds of bitmap

tried saving it with MS Paint

nothing is working.

did you mean there was a way to save it with the transparent information already done in photoshop? I tried saving with the centre as the photoshop transparent (the grey white grids) but still no luck.

any advice is much appreciated

Freud

[Leith Ross]

Hello Freud1,

This is what I did, and just didn't have time to finish it. I copied the slot picture to the clipboard, opened Microsoft Photo Editor, pasted the picture as a new picture, and saved it as a PNG (Portable Network Graphic). I did this because the picture is a 24-bit true color. 24-bit pictures set their transparency using an alpha channel and not a transparency mask like a bitmap. I copied the new PNG into Paint and started to edit the white circle. When I set the alpha channel to white for the transparency in Photo Editor, not all of the white was converted because some parts are not pure white. Editing with Paint is very tedious and slow.

Sincerely,
Leith Ross

[shg]

I cannot get excel to make the centre of the slot transparent using the Picture Toolbar and the 'set transparent color' tool.

It worked for me with no difficulty. There are 66 individual pictures to do it to.

[freud1]

hey leith, shg,

The PNG format worked like a charm! I've got the opacity sorted, just need to get this thing linked to select a coin colour and then to drop the coin in the slot so it lands on the last coin

I've uploaded what i did with the PNG grid

http://www.mediafire.com/?ylsi4delybc

thanks