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' One way to randomize a list of items. For this you'll need three ' listboxes, named 'Openlist', 'Donelist' and 'Templist' (minus ' quotes. There's probably a better way to do this, but this is just what ' I came up with. It's simple really, but hopefully it should help someone. ' Comments or suggestions, contact me via the contact form on PSC. If you ' want to use this with an array, just modify the adding, deleting and ' counting actions for whatever you need. You'll need a bit of Rediming in ' there too. ' No warranty is provided for this script or its actions, neither expressed ' nor implied. No liability is assumed for the use, misuse, or inability to ' use this script, or the consequences thus. Dim fromline As Double Dim thisixloc As Double ' Names used here: ' Openlist - this is a listbox containing all the items you want to ' randomize. Where I've used it, it's contained lines opened ' from a text file, hence 'Openlist' - Just replace all if ' you really must change it ' Donelist - This is the listbox which will contain the finished product ' when it's all been randomized ' Templist - The temporary store for the latter part of the Donelist (more ' later) ' thisixloc - The current index number a new item should take (more later) ' fromline - The current line index we're dealing with ' Add the first item to the donelist. ' It doesn't matter what item is added first, since by the end it could be ' anywhere in the list Donelist.AddItem (Openlist.List(0)) ' We're going to do this process for every item in the Openlist, otherwise ' we'd be leaving things out. Common sense really For Item = 1 To Openlist.ListCount - 1 ' Generate a new random seed. Make all this randomness a little more ' random Randomize ' This generated an index location number, i.e. after this process has ' finished, this is the index number we want it to end up as. Bear in ' mind we're working in Base 0 here, so we start from 0. Also, the new ' item could go at the end of the list. So that would be the highest ' index value plus 1, which is the same as the ListCount, so we'll use ' that instead. The formula here is: ' Int((Highest - Lowest + 1) * Rnd + Lowest) ' Just generates us a number between our upper and lower bounds. Note ' that because we have 0 as a lower bound, adding or subtracting it does ' nothing, so the -0 and +0 just disappear to leave us with the ' following: thisixloc = Int((Donelist.ListCount + 1) * Rnd) ' If the generated index number is 0, it means the current item is gonna ' be put at the start of the list. If thisixloc = 0 Then ' So, we clear the temp store (here Templist) just in case, for whatever ' reason, there's something left over in there... Templist.Clear ' ...move everything in Donelist over to the temporary store... For fromline = 0 To Donelist.ListCount - 1 Templist.AddItem (Donelist.List(fromline)) Next fromline ' ...clear the donelist... Donelist.Clear ' ...add the item... Donelist.AddItem (Openlist.List(Item)) ' ...move all the items back after the new item... For fromline = 0 To Templist.ListCount - 1 Donelist.AddItem (Templist.List(fromline)) Next fromline ' ...and finally clear the temp store so it's fresh for next time ' it's used Templist.Clear ' If our index number is one higher than the highest index in the ' donelist, this means we want to put the item on the end of the list ElseIf thisixloc = Donelist.ListCount Then ' So of course, we just add it straight on there Donelist.AddItem (Openlist.List(Item)) ' Any other index number means we're gonna have to slip it into the ' list, in between what's already there. So, we'll split the list ' in two. The first part will be everything up to where we want the ' item to go, and the second part will be everything after it. So, ' we'll move the second part to the temporary store, remove the items ' that we just transferred, add the new item to the end of the first ' part of the list, then transferring everything back from the temp ' store, sticking it back on the end of our list. ' EDIT: Originally what I did was move the first part to one store, ' then the second to another store. Re-add the first one, then ' the item, then the second one. However, this meant that in the ' computer memory, the list had to be duplicated, taking up both ' memory itself and time. Especially for long lists, duplicating ' a large portion of the list when it's not required was a silly ' thing to be doing. So now, hopefully, if we just delete things ' off the end, the first part can stay exactly where it was in ' the memory, and we just add to it. Else ' Clear the temporary store, again in case there's something left ' there for whatever reason Templist.Clear ' Now, we'll take the second part of the list (from the index ' location right to the end) and put it in the temp store. ' If I type 'story' instead of 'store' one more time I'll go nuts For fromline = thisixloc To Donelist.ListCount - 1 Templist.AddItem (Donelist.List(fromline)) Next fromline ' Now, we'll remove exactly the same items. We couldn't really ' remove them in the For Next loop above or we'd end up messing ' up our index numbers and making the process one helluva lot more ' complex than it really needs to be. Note that as the number of ' items in the list decreases as we delete them, we can just keep ' deleting whatever's in the current index location. If we do this ' the number of times there are things to delete, then all of them ' will go For fromline = thisixloc To Donelist.ListCount - 1 Donelist.RemoveItem (thisixloc) Next fromline ' Here comes our new item Donelist.AddItem (Openlist.List(Item)) ' Then move everything back onto the end of that list... For fromline = 0 To Templist.ListCount - 1 Donelist.AddItem (Templist.List(fromline)) Next fromline ' ...and clear the temp store again Templist.Clear End If Next Item