Google-sheets – Blinking cell in Google Sheets depending on cell content

conditional formattinggoogle sheetsgoogle-apps-script

I am trying to get a cell to blink (alternate colours white-red) when it contains the word "Red". I currently have the following code that I have found, but don't know how to modify it to particularly look for the word every time an edit is made. 

function onEdit(e)
{
  var ss = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet();
  var mysheet = ss.getSheetByName("LBACC17");
  var activeCell = ss.getActiveCell().getA1Notation();

  if( activeCell == "K2" )
  {
    for(var i=0;i<50;i++)
    {
      if( i%2 == 0 )
        mysheet.getRange("K3").setBackground("RED");
      else
        mysheet.getRange("K3").setBackground("WHITE");

      SpreadsheetApp.flush();
      Utilities.sleep(500);
    }
  }
}

Best Answer

This will get you up and running, but you'll probably want to either reduce the loop time or insert a check for if/when the cell is changed to something other than "Red", otherwise it'll just keep blinking until the loop completes.

function onEdit(event){

  var ss = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet();
  var sh = ss.getSheets()[0]; // 0 == first sheet.
  var ee = event.source.getActiveRange().getA1Notation();
  if (ee == "K2") { // Check if edited cell is the one we're watching.
    if (event.value == "Red"){ // If the value == "Red", do stuff.
      var toggle = sh.getRange("K2");

      for(var i=0;i<50;i++) {
      if( i%2 == 0 )
        toggle.setBackground("RED");
      else
        toggle.setBackground("WHITE");

      SpreadsheetApp.flush();
      Utilities.sleep(500);
      }
    }
  }
}

Edit
Make sure you consider heavily the oversimplified nature of this script, as noted by Ruben in the comments below. There's plenty of room for this to be fleshed out to handle edge cases.

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