Roll your own OA

The Office Assistant has taken a lot of hits, but it is missing in 2007, but still around in earlier versions.

If you want to play with it, see John Walkenbach's Create A Fake Clippy



Here is a creature you could use to replace Clippy:
Nerd Bird

There are other articles in the MS library about Agents and Assistants:
Animating Office Applications with Microsoft Agent

And:
Using the Office Assistant to Display Help

Programming the Office Assistant

The VBA help file give a list of motions for the assistants. Look for Assistants>Animation.
The code is simple:

With Assistant
.On = True
.Visible = True
.Move xLeft:= 400, yTop:= 300
.MoveWhenInTheWay = True
.TipOfDay = True
.Animation = msoAnimationGreeting
End With

Here are a few of the actions:

• msoAnimationBeginSpeaking
  
• msoAnimationCheckingSomething
  
• msoAnimationGetArtsy
  
• msoAnimationGetTechy
  
• msoAnimationGetWizardy
  
• msoAnimationRestPose
  
• msoAnimationSendingMail
  
• msoAnimationThinking
  
• msoAnimationWorkingAtSomething
  
• msoAnimationWritingNotingSomething
  
• msoAnimationCheckingSomething
  
• msoAnimationGetTechy
  
• msoAnimationListensToComputer

Labels: Customize, Macros