MXL5: Option Button and Check Box Labels Don't Update Properly

• Microsoft Excel for the Macintosh, versions 5.0, 5.0a

SYMPTOMS

When you create a dynamic custom dialog box in Microsoft Excel for the Macintosh, versions 5.0 and 5.0a, and one action of the dynamic trigger control changes labels on option buttons or check boxes, you may notice that text from a previous label is not replaced by the new label.

WORKAROUND

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   ' Make sure to call this procedure after assigning the new labels to the
   ' controls. This Sub Procedure has two arguments: Ctrl is the control 
   ' and NumToBlank is the number of spaces necessary to cover up the 
   ' longest possible caption for the control.

   Sub ClearLabels(Ctrl as Object, NumToBlank as Integer)
       ' Follow the current label with a lot of spaces.
       Ctrl.Caption = Ctrl.Caption & _
           String(NumToBlank - Len(Ctrl.Caption), "    ")
   End Sub

   ClearLabels ActiveDialog.OptionButtons("Option1"), 30

If you prefer to have one procedure fix all of the option buttons at once by looping through them, you can create a procedure such as the following:

   ' Make sure to call this after assigning the new labels to the controls.

   Sub Clear_Labels()
       ' Dimension a variable to hold the objects.
       Dim Control As Object
       ' Sets up a loop to run through every option button in the active
       ' dialog. Change ".OptionButtons" to ".CheckBoxes" if working with
       ' check boxes.
       For Each Control In ActiveDialog.OptionButtons
           ' Set the caption equal to itself with 35 spaces after it.
           ' You may need to edit this line to increase or decrease the
           ' number of characters in the final label. Keep in mind that
           ' with proportional fonts, it may take more than 10 spaces to
           ' cover up 10 other characters.
           Control.Caption = Control.Caption & _
               String(35 - Len(Control.Caption), " ")
       ' Loop through the code.
       Next Control
   End Sub

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in the products listed at the beginning of this article. This problem was corrected in Microsoft Excel 98 Macintosh Edition.

REFERENCES

For more information about affecting controls and dialog boxes in Visual Basic for Applications, consult the "Visual Basic User's Guide," Chapter 11 "Controls and Dialog Boxes."