<bobdietz@bigfoot.com>De: Bob Dietz 
À<steadmancr@my-deja.com>: 
Objet: Re: Ramdom Tips in Statusbar
Date : jeudi 26 août 1999 14:45

Hi Colin,

Let me try again.

if your computer has been OFF and you turn it ON and START
Word and run Chris Rae's code
I'll quote it again here. (I'm not trying to pick on you Chris.<g>)

Sub TipInStatusBar()
    dim PhraseList As Variant

    PhraseList = array( _
     "Smoking causes cancer!", _
     "Your house is at risk if you do not keep up payment.", _
     "Have you thought about a holiday recently?")

    application.StatusBar = PhraseList(Int((ubound(PhraseList) - _
     LBound(PhraseList) + 1) * Rnd + LBound(PhraseList)))
end Sub

You will see, "Have you thought about a holiday recently?"
appear in the status bar.

This is what will happen everytime. (The first time the code
gets run after the computer has been shut down.)

if the code is changed to read

Sub TipInStatusBar()
    dim PhraseList As Variant

    Randomize

    PhraseList = array( _
     "Smoking causes cancer!", _
     "Your house is at risk if you do not keep up payment.", _
     "Have you thought about a holiday recently?")

    application.StatusBar = PhraseList(Int((ubound(PhraseList) - _
     LBound(PhraseList) + 1) * Rnd + LBound(PhraseList)))
end Sub

then it is inpossible to predict exactly which of the three
you will see in the statusbar, though it is possible to determine
the probability for any given item.

Ideally, the probability for any of the three quotes showing up
would be 1/3. The reality is that one will appear more often than
either of the other two. I don't know what the true probabilities
are, but if I did, they might look something like

Probability        Phrase
37.1355%        "Smoking causes ...
36.8389%        "Have you thought ...
26.0256%        "Your house is ...

However random computers may often appear to be, it is very,
very difficult to MAKE them do anything that is truely random.

Hope this helps,
Bob Dietz

steadmancr@my-deja.com wrote:

> We thought it was quite fun also.
>
> As far as my VBa skills go...  I think the code I wrote in the initial
> message says it all.  The only programming experience I've had to date
> is with WordBasic, so most of this stuff is very new to me (waiting to
> go a good VB course for beginners, if anyone can recommend one in the
> UK).
>
> I've just read Bob Dietz reply to your message, and I have no idea what
> he's trying to say (sorry Bob).
>
> Thankyou for posting the code, works fine!
>
> Colin Steadman,
>
> In article <#xCUR8t7#GA.254@cppssbbsa04>,
>   "Chris Rae"<news@chrisrae.com>  wrote:
> > I like this idea! Almost tempted to implement it in my office. I'm
> > not sure what level your VBA is at so I hope I'm not patronising /
> > confusing here.
> >
> > I've sat down and thought about this for a bit and unfortunately I
> > can't come up with a clean way of doing this. I can't use constant
> > arrays, so that's out. The Choose function looks promising but you
> > can't work out the bounds and Iif only takes two arguments. So...
> > here's my best attempt.
> >
> > Sub TipInStatusBar()
> >     dim PhraseList As Variant
> >
> >     PhraseList = array( _
> >      "Smoking causes cancer!", _
> >      "Your house is at risk if you do not keep up payment.", _
> >      "Have you thought about a holiday recently?")
> >
> >     application.StatusBar = PhraseList(Int((ubound(PhraseList) - _
> >      LBound(PhraseList) + 1) * Rnd + LBound(PhraseList)))
> > end Sub
> >
> > Hope that's some use - it'll work but I've no doubt someone here will
> > improve it!
> >
> > Chris
>
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