VBA guy really needs help with .net

[thedouble13man]

I am relatively proficient with VBA and primarily use it for Excel. I
am trying to do something that seems as though it should be easy but I
have been struggling and cannot seem to figure it out even after
reading various blogs and articles.

Goal: Stream data from an excel spreadsheet on our network to a
custom toolbar which displays the data and updates it in real-time.

In excel, I was just writing the data from the other machine to a text
file and then on my machine in excel I just opened it and then named
the labels of my custom toolbar according to each line of the text
file. I was using the application.ontime method to update it but this
addin seems to crash the machine alot and is not very robust
(especially the inability to format a toolbar in VBA).

Therefore my solution must be in studio using .net. I started
thinking that the solution would work better if I used a database and
had it linked to the controls but I cannot for the life of me get it
to work.

1) What is the best way to stream this data real time (it is only 10
rows of 3 columns but I may want to expand it to 50 or so)
2) Is a db connection the best way to go (ie. can it update in the
background in real-time so that I have streaming data in a toolbar)
3) Any tips on how to link the control and the specific item since the
db won't be appended the items are just changing.
Specifically, the data in excel is 10 rows with c1=ItemDesc, C2=Price,
C3=PriceChg
When I link the data it just pulls all the data but since the toolbar
is going at the top of the excel sheet each label should represent
ItemDesc & Price & PriceChg going across.

Sorry if this is basic to you all, but I have been struggling with
this for two days and feel like a complete moron but I am finally
asking for help.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks

 

[Guest]

Therefore my solution must be in studio using .net. I started
thinking that the solution would work better if I used a database and
had it linked to the controls but I cannot for the life of me get it
to work.

If you going to do real time streaming, SQL Server or even MS Access is a
much better choice.

I would also look up on how to build and use a web service - this would be
perfect to use in a streaming scenario.

 

[thedouble13man]

Do you mean for the toolbar or for streaming the data? What about
linking the control with a specific data item not just the field?

Thanks

 

[Guest]

Do you mean for the toolbar or for streaming the data? What about
linking the control with a specific data item not just the field?

The web service would be used to connect to your backend data store (SQL
Server).

The toolbar would communicate via web service to pull the stream down. The
client could have a timer to pull new data every X seconds.

As for displaying the data - that's pretty trival depending on how you're
showing the data...