This is the continuation of last Week's Article:
Office Assistant and MsgBox Menus. Readers may go through that Page first, if you have not already done so, before continuing.
Last week we have learned how to use Office Assistant for
MsgBox in a simple way and seen how to create a
Menu and present it to the User, with the
Labels Property of the
Balloon Object.
We have seen that we can display the Menu from
Labels().Text Property in three different ways by setting the Values of
BalloonType Property:
- BalloonType = msoBalloonTypeButtons
The User can click on any of these Buttons to select one of the Options presented.
- BalloonType = msoBalloonTypeBullets
- BalloonType = msoBalloonTypeNumbers
The second and third
BalloonType Values displays the
Labels().Text in different styles but they cannot be selected by the User. So, we can use these options for different situations in Programs.
Let us look little closer to the overall behavior of the
Balloon Object when you display MsgBox with Office Assistant, to understand it better.
If you go back and try those earlier examples, you can see that while a
MsgBox with the Office Assistant's
Balloon Object is displayed you cannot click or work with any other object in the database unless you dismiss the
Balloon by responding to the actions you are suggested to do, like clicking on the
OK or
Cancel Button and so on. This is true in the case of the normal MsgBox()
Function of MS-Access too. But, Office Assistant has some solution to this rigid behavior of Message Boxes.
When the
Balloon is displayed, you cannot open a
Form or
Report to check something on it, before clicking the
Yes or
No Button on the MsgBox because the
Mode Property of the
Balloon Object is set with default value
msoModeModal.
I have not introduced the
Mode Property to you in the earlier examples to avoid overcrowding of usage rules. Once you are through with the basics it will be easier to understand other things associated with it better. You have already seen that you can create Message Boxes using Balloon Object of Office Assistant with few lines of Code and display them in style without using these properties.
The
Mode Property can be set with three different values to control the behavior of the
Balloon Object.
Mode =
msoModeModal (default)
This value setting forces the User to dismiss the Balloon by responding to the suggested action before doing anything else, like normal MS-Access MsgBox. You have to click on one of the
Buttons (if more than one is showing like
OK and
Cancel) on the MsgBox to dismiss the
Balloon before you are allowed to do anything else.
Mode =
msoModeModeless This value setting allows the User to access other database objects, while the
Balloon is active. But, this forces the use of another Property
CallBack, to run separate
Sub-Routine to do the testing of selection of choices or do different things based on the choice and finally to
Close the
Balloon Object.
Mode =
msoModeAutoDown This value setting dismisses the
Balloon (MsgBox) automatically if you click somewhere else ignoring the Balloon.
The first and last
Mode Property value setting and their usages are very clear. But, the second one (
msoModeModeless) needs the
CallBack Property Value set with the name of a valid Sub-Routine otherwise the
Balloon will not work. You cannot load the
CallBack Property with an empty string either because that will trigger an Error.
So let us see how we can re-write the earlier Program to understand the usage of
Mode Property set with the value
msoModeModeless and
Callback Property with the name of a Sub-Routine to handle the selection of option displayed in the Menu.
The Modified Code with
Mode and
CallBack Property Settings and the sample Code for the required Sub-Routine
MyProcess() is given below:
Public Sub Choices()
Dim bln As Balloon
Set bln = Assistant.NewBalloon
With bln
.Heading = "Report Options"
.Icon = msoIconAlertQuery
.Button = msoButtonSetNone
.labels(1).text = "Print Preview."
.labels(2).text = "Print. "
.labels(3).text = "Pivot Chart. "
.BalloonType = msoBalloonTypeButtons
.text = "Select one of " & .labels.Count & " Choices? "
.mode = msoModeModeless
.Callback = "myProcess"
.Show
End With
End Sub
Sub MyProcess(bln As Balloon, lbtn As Long, lPriv As Long)
Assistant.Animation = msoAnimationPrinting
Select Case lbtn
Case 1
DoCmd.OpenReport "MyReport", acViewPreview
Case 2
DoCmd.OpenReport "MyReport", acViewNormal
Case 3
DoCmd.OpenReport "MyReport", acViewPivotChart
End Select
bln.Close
End Sub
The
CallBack Property is set with the Sub-Routine name
myProcess. When the User clicks on one of the Options from the displayed
MsgBox the
MyProcess() Sub-Routine is called by the
Balloon and passes the required
Parameter Values.
There are three parameters passed to the Sub-Routine when called:
- The Balloon Object bln.
- A Long Integer type value lbtn (BalloonTypeButton) identifying the Option clicked.
- A Long Integer type value lPriv (Private) uniquely identifying the Balloon that called the Sub-Routine, if there are more than one Balloon active in memory at the same time.
NB: There is no such thing as collection of Balloon Objects. But, you can create an Array of Variables with Balloon Object, define different Property Settings for each of them and .Show them with their respective index numbers in Programs when you need them to appear. The
lbtn Variable will have the value of User's choice. This is tested in the Sub-Routine and runs the
Docmd.OpenReport action within the
Select Case …End Select Statements.
The
Assistant.Animation = msoAnimationPrinting line is placed in the Sub-Routine, rather than in the main Program as part of the
Balloon Object Property setting, to animate the printing action only after the User makes a selection from the displayed Menu otherwise the printing animation will run before the selection of choices.
The
bln.close statement dismisses the MsgBox.
Next week we will learn how to use the
CheckBoxes().Text Property Values of the
Balloon Object to display a Menu with
Check-Boxes in MsgBox.
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