Manipulating individual shapes within grouped shapes in PowerPoint using VBA?

I've made a whole bunch of suggestions in the overly-commented code below:

' Always put this line at the top of every module as it'll really help you debug projects
Option Explicit

Sub recolorswoosh()

Dim x As Long ' was Integer but object collections use Long
Dim iconpicked As String
Dim myshape As Shape
'Dim currentslide As Slide no longer needed
'Dim refindleft As Single no longer needed
'Dim refindtop As Single no longer needed
Dim myMSshape As Shape
'Dim farthestleft As Single no longer needed
Dim myswoosh As Shape
' These were undefined (found by using Option Explicit) but are no longer needed
' Dim findleft As Single, findtop As Single

iconpicked = "C:\Test\nuclear.emf"

'Set currentslide = ActivePresentation.Slides(ActiveWindow.View.Slide.SlideIndex)
'Set myshape = currentslide.Shapes.AddPicture(FileName:=iconpicked, linktofile:=msoFalse, _
        savewithdocument:=msoTrue, Left:=200, Top:=200)
' Above can be simplified to:
Set myshape = ActiveWindow.View.Slide.Shapes.AddPicture(FileName:=iconpicked, linktofile:=msoFalse, _
        savewithdocument:=msoTrue, Left:=200, Top:=200)

' No longer needed:
'findleft = myshape.Left 'store left edge of imported EMF so we can refind it later
'findtop = myshape.Top 'store top edge of imported EMF so we can refind it later

'find the converted shape by matching stored coordinates
'For Each myshape In currentslide.Shapes
'    If myshape.Left = findleft And myshape.Top = findtop Then
'        Set myMSshape = myshape
'        Exit For
'    End If
'Next

' The above part can be simplified by creating a reference to the MS drawing group at the time it's converted from EMF
Set myMSshape = myshape.Ungroup(1) 'convert EMF to Microsoft Office drawing object so we can manipulate it

'the left most shape will be the swoosh in every case.  Iterate the shapes to identify it.
'farthestleft = ActivePresentation.PageSetup.SlideWidth ' was 1200 but not sure why?
'For x = 1 To myMSshape.GroupItems.Count
'    Set myshape = myMSshape.GroupItems(x)
'    If myshape.Left < farthestleft Then
'        Set myswoosh = myshape
'        farthestleft = myshape.Left
'    End If
'Next x

' The above part could be simplified to find the swoosh using its layer,
' which is also constant at 2, above the AutoShapeXX object.
Set myswoosh = myMSshape.GroupItems(2)

' You could optionally delete the AutoShapeXX object which is always created
' as an invisble boundary shape in the lowest layer when ungrouping an EMF.
myMSshape.GroupItems(1).Delete

' You could optionally name the group and items in it to help identification
' in the Selection Pane for a user.
With myMSshape
  x = InStrRev(iconpicked, "\")
  .Name = "Icon : " & Mid(iconpicked, x + 1, Len(iconpicked) - x)
  .GroupItems(1).Name = "swoosh"
  For x = 2 To .GroupItems.Count: .GroupItems(x).Name = "icon element": Next
End With

MsgBox "The swoosh is named " & myswoosh.Name & vbCrLf & " located at left = " & myswoosh.Left & vbCrLf & " filled with color " & myswoosh.Fill.ForeColor

' Recolour to theme to be on brand
myswoosh.Fill.ForeColor.ObjectThemeColor = msoThemeColorAccent1

End Sub

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And here it is all tidied up:

Option Explicit

Sub recolorswoosh2()
  Dim x As Long
  Dim iconpicked As String
  Dim myshape As Shape, myMSshape As Shape, myswoosh As Shape
  
  iconpicked = "C:\Test\nuclear.emf"
  iconpicked = myPath & "\nuclear.emf"
  
  ' insert the EMF picture from the file system
  Set myshape = ActiveWindow.View.Slide.Shapes.AddPicture(iconpicked, msoFalse, msoTrue, 200, 200)
  
  ' create a reference to the MS drawing group at the time it's converted from EMF
  Set myMSshape = myshape.Ungroup(1)
  
  ' find the swoosh using its layer which is constant at 2
  Set myswoosh = myMSshape.GroupItems(2)
  
  ' delete the AutoShapeXX object
  myMSshape.GroupItems(1).Delete
  
  ' name the group and items in it
  With myMSshape
    x = InStrRev(iconpicked, "\")
    .Name = "Icon : " & Mid(iconpicked, x + 1, Len(iconpicked) - x)
    .GroupItems(1).Name = "swoosh"
    For x = 2 To .GroupItems.Count: .GroupItems(x).Name = "icon element": Next
  End With
  
  ' Recolour to theme to be on brand
  myswoosh.Fill.ForeColor.ObjectThemeColor = msoThemeColorAccent1
End Sub

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And as you may want to process multiple shapes, you need to change the declaration of the above sub and call it from a second procedure like this:

Sub recolorswoosh2(oShp As Shape)
...
End Sub

Sub RecolorIcons()
  Dim oSld As Slide
  Dim oShp As Shape
  For Each oSld In ActivePresentation.Slides
    For Each oShp In oSld.Shapes
      'If oShp meets criteria xyz then
        ' recolorswoosh2 oShp
      'End If
    Next
  End If
End Sub

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You'll need to work out how to identify the icons, perhaps by name, safer is to use .Tags which are not editable via the PowerPoint UI by a user and can be added to a shape at the point it's inserted programmatically.

oops - I left one line of test code in my tidied up routine. This should be deleted: (if a moderator is reading, please could you delete it from the line 9 in the second code block of post ID: 42043209?)

iconpicked = myPath & "\nuclear.emf"

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Regarding group item 2. Whenever a WMF (or EPS) file is ungrouped the first time, it's converted to the native MSO vector format, as a group of shapes. The element order of the original WMF vector graphic will be retained so I assumed (maybe wrongly) that your design team will ensure that the swoosh will always be the element in the backmost layer. It's on layer 2 because the ungroup-to-convert process creates an unwanted shapes named AutoShape XX in the backmost layer of the group. This shape (which is equal in size to the boundary of all other shapes in the group) isn't normally needed and hence can be deleted. It's useful in my vicons product because all icons must occupy the same square area to retain their family look and feel so resizing them based on the invisible AutoShape is useful when the icon is not square.

When I coded this add-in I relied on these EPS to MSO conversion behaviours and it didn't fail in this respect for the 660 icons, each of various numbers of layers.

It doesn't matter how many objects will be on top because PowerPoint indexes from the back to the front so the backmost layer is always index 1 (or 2) if you keep the AutoShape.

Regarding the placeholder thing, yes, I came across that when developing another add-in. I can't recall what I did so let me go dig around in some code...