Public combobox on user form initialization?

[Sandi Vogel]

I have a couple of templates that contain a combo box that is populated on
initialization like so:

Private Sub UserForm_Initialize()

With Me.cboBillingAtty
.AddItem "Click and type or select from dropdown"
.AddItem "Joe Attorney"
.AddItem "Tom Attorney" (etc.; includes 40 attorneys)
.ListIndex = 0
End With

I now realize that as attorneys come and go, I'm going to have to modify the
names in each of my templates -- what a drag. Is there a way to make all of
the templates pull attorney names from one central place? I have heard of
"calling public routines"; but also have a vague recall that it might be
dangerous if you don't know what you're doing (and I sure don't!). Thought
I'd check with the experts first.

Thanks for any help!
Sandi Vogel

 

[Jonathan West]

I have a couple of templates that contain a combo box that is populated on
initialization like so:

Private Sub UserForm_Initialize()

With Me.cboBillingAtty
.AddItem "Click and type or select from dropdown"
.AddItem "Joe Attorney"
.AddItem "Tom Attorney" (etc.; includes 40 attorneys)
.ListIndex = 0
End With

I now realize that as attorneys come and go, I'm going to have to modify
the
names in each of my templates -- what a drag. Is there a way to make all
of
the templates pull attorney names from one central place? I have heard of
"calling public routines"; but also have a vague recall that it might be
dangerous if you don't know what you're doing (and I sure don't!).
Thought
I'd check with the experts first.

Hi Sandi

The way to handle this is to have a single location where your data is
stored. This can be any one of a number of possible places, such as

- a custom document property in the template
- a document variable in the template
- a separate text file that is in the same folder as the template (or some
other known location)
- an entry in the system registry

Once you have decided where your data will go, then all you need do is
modify your templates so that they read the data from this central place and
populate your combobox accordingly. Precisely how you do this depends on
where you decide to store the data.

custom document property - read the CustomDocumentProperties collection
variable - read the Variables collection
text file - look up the Open and Line Input commands
registry - read up on the GetSetting command

Your concerns over public routines are a bit of a misunderstanding. It can
cause confusion if you have too many public variables that can be read and
written from multiple routines. Variables should be given the tightest
possible scope, to reduce the risk of accidental re-use.


--
Regards
Jonathan West - Word MVP
www.intelligentdocuments.co.uk
Please reply to the newsgroup
Keep your VBA code safe, sign the ClassicVB petition www.classicvb.org

 

[Sandi Vogel]

Thank you! I'll go with a text file.

Hi Sandi

The way to handle this is to have a single location where your data is
stored. This can be any one of a number of possible places, such as

- a custom document property in the template
- a document variable in the template
- a separate text file that is in the same folder as the template (or some
other known location)
- an entry in the system registry

Once you have decided where your data will go, then all you need do is
modify your templates so that they read the data from this central place and
populate your combobox accordingly. Precisely how you do this depends on
where you decide to store the data.

custom document property - read the CustomDocumentProperties collection
variable - read the Variables collection
text file - look up the Open and Line Input commands
registry - read up on the GetSetting command

Your concerns over public routines are a bit of a misunderstanding. It can
cause confusion if you have too many public variables that can be read and
written from multiple routines. Variables should be given the tightest
possible scope, to reduce the risk of accidental re-use.


--
Regards
Jonathan West - Word MVP
www.intelligentdocuments.co.uk
Please reply to the newsgroup
Keep your VBA code safe, sign the ClassicVB petition www.classicvb.org

 

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

This routine loads a listbox with client details stored in a table in a
separate
document (which makes it easy to maintain with additions, deletions etc.),
that document being saved as Clients.Doc for the following code.

On the UserForm, have a list box (ListBox1) and a Command Button
(CommandButton1) and use the following code in the UserForm_Initialize() and
the CommandButton1_Click() routines

Private Sub UserForm_Initialize()
Dim sourcedoc As Document, i As Integer, j As Integer, myitem As Range,
m As Long, n As Long
' Modify the path in the following line so that it matches where you
saved Clients.doc
Application.ScreenUpdating = False
' Open the file containing the client details
Set sourcedoc = Documents.Open(FileName:="e:\worddocs\Clients.doc")
' Get the number or clients = number of rows in the table of client
details less one
i = sourcedoc.Tables(1).Rows.Count - 1
' Get the number of columns in the table of client details
j = sourcedoc.Tables(1).Columns.Count
' Set the number of columns in the Listbox to match
' the number of columns in the table of client details
ListBox1.ColumnCount = j
' Define an array to be loaded with the client data
Dim MyArray() As Variant
'Load client data into MyArray
ReDim MyArray(i, j)
For n = 0 To j - 1
For m = 0 To i - 1
Set myitem = sourcedoc.Tables(1).Cell(m + 2, n + 1).Range
myitem.End = myitem.End - 1
MyArray(m, n) = myitem.Text
Next m
Next n
' Load data into ListBox1
ListBox1.List() = MyArray
' Close the file containing the client details
sourcedoc.Close SaveChanges:=wdDoNotSaveChanges
End Sub

Private Sub CommandButton1_Click()
Dim i As Integer, Addressee As String
Addressee = ""
For i = 1 To ListBox1.ColumnCount
ListBox1.BoundColumn = i
Addressee = Addressee & ListBox1.Value & vbCr
Next i
ActiveDocument.Bookmarks("Addressee").Range.InsertAfter Addressee
UserForm2.Hide
End Sub

The Initialize statement will populate the listbox with the data from the
table and then when a client is selected in from the list and the command
button is clicked, the information for that client will be inserted into a
bookmark in the document. You may want to vary the manner in which it is
inserted to suit our exact requirements, but hopefully this will get you
started.

To make it easy for you, the code has been written so that it will deal with
any number of clients and any number of details about each client. It
assumes that the first row of the table containing the client details is a
header row.


--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

 

[Sandi Vogel]

Thanks so much! This is going to be very helpful in getting started!

 

[cirtina constantin]

change ListBox1m with ComboBox1 and surce = Clients.xls
for word2003
Thanks.