How to record mouse clicks in Excel VBA?

Question

I am trying to make a macro that records what a user clicked, which then records the mouse coordinates and the delay between the clicks. This will then repeat after some oth

Answer 1

This is theoretically possible to do, but you'd have to set a hook for WH_MOUSE_LL messages. The problem is that I seriously doubt that VBA can keep up with the volume of messages that are going to be coming through that pipe. It would be like trying drinking from a fire hose in VBA. If you really want to give it a shot, you can see if this works.

But first:

DISCLAIMER

In all likelihood, Excel will stop responding if you set up this Workbook and open it. It will certainlly stop responding if you open the VBE. Do not put this in a spreadsheet that you can't afford to delete. Be fully prepared to have to open it with the shift key down to make edits to the code. You have been warned. I take no responsibility for what you do with this. I know better than to have tried it with any code in the event handler. You will likely crash Excel. You will certainly crash the VBE. You may crash anything or everything else.

That should cover it. So...

In a class called HookHolder:

Option Explicit

Private hook As Long

Public Sub SetHook()
    hook = SetWindowsHookEx(WH_MOUSE_LL, AddressOf ClickHook, _
                            0, GetCurrentThreadId)
End Sub

Public Sub UnsetHook()
    'IMPORTANT: You need to release the hook when you're done with it.
    UnhookWindowsHookEx hook
End Sub

In ThisWorkbook:

Option Explicit

Private danger As HookHolder

Private Sub Workbook_Open()
    Set danger = New HookHolder
    danger.SetHook
End Sub

Private Sub Workbook_BeforeClose(Cancel As Boolean)
    danger.UnsetHook
End Sub

In a Module:

Option Explicit

Public Declare Function GetCurrentThreadId Lib "kernel32" () As Long
Public Declare Function SetWindowsHookEx Lib "user32" Alias "SetWindowsHookExA" _
        (ByVal idHook As Long, ByVal lpfn As Long, ByVal hmod As Long, _
        ByVal dwThreadId As Long) As Long
Public Declare Function UnhookWindowsHookEx Lib "user32" (ByVal hHook As Long) As Long
Public Declare Function CallNextHookEx Lib "user32" (ByVal hHook As Long, _
        ByVal nCode As Long, ByVal wParam As Long, lParam As Any) As Long

Public Const HC_ACTION As Long = 0
Public Const WH_MOUSE_LL As Long = &H2
Public Const WM_LBUTTONDOWN As Long = &H201
Public Const WM_LBUTTONUP As Long = &H202
Public Const WM_LBUTTONDBLCLK  As Long = &H203

'Your callback function.
Public Function ClickHook(ByVal nCode As Long, ByVal wParam As Long, ByVal lParam As Long) As Long
    If nCode = HC_ACTION Then
        'Anything in particular you're interest in?
        Select Case wParam
            Case WM_LBUTTONDOWN
                'Do your thing.
            Case WM_LBUTTONUP
                'Do your thing.
            Case WM_LBUTTONDBLCLK
                'Do your thing.
        End Select
    End If
    CallNextHookEx 0, nCode, wParam, ByVal lParam
End Function