How to Edit Grid Cells in VB Using Overlapped Text Box

- Professional and Enterprise Editions of Microsoft Visual Basic,

  16-bit only, for Windows, version 4.0

SUMMARY

The Grid custom control does not provide any text editing capability. The example program below shows how you can use a text box to perform text editing in the current cell of a grid.

MORE INFORMATION

The example program shown below enables you to edit the contents of a grid cell. When you press a key, the grid moves a text box to the position of the current cell and sets the focus to the text box. When you press the ENTER key or change focus away from the current cell, the program transfers the text in the text box back to the grid.

Steps to Create Example Program

1. Start Visual Basic or from the File menu, choose New Project (ALT, F, N) if Visual Basic is already running. Form1 is created by default.

2. From the Tools menu, choose Custom Controls. Then check the Microsoft Grid Control check box. Click OK.

3. Place a grid (Grid1) and a text box (Text1) on Form1. Set the Grid1 Cols and Rows properties both to 4. Then size the grid to show all the cells. Set the Text1 BorderStyle property to None (0) and the Visible property to False (0).

4. Enter the following declarations in the general Declarations section:

      Const ASC_ENTER = 13        ' ASCII code of ENTER key.
      Dim gRow As Integer
      Dim gCol As Integer
   
   

5. Enter the following code in the Grid1_KeyPress procedure:

      Private Sub Grid1_KeyPress (KeyAscii As Integer)
         ' Move the text box to the current grid cell:
         Call grid_text_move(Grid1, Text1)
   
         ' Save the position of the grids Row and Col for later:
         gRow = Grid1.Row
         gCol = Grid1.Col
   
         ' Make text box same size as current grid cell:
         Text1.Width = Grid1.ColWidth(Grid1.Col) - 2 * Screen.TwipsPerPixelX
         Text1.Height = Grid1.RowHeight(Grid1.Row) - 2 * Screen.TwipsPerPixelY
   
         ' Transfer the grid cell text:
         Text1.Text = Grid1.Text
   
         ' Show the text box:
         Text1.Visible = True
         Text1.ZOrder 0
         Text1.SetFocus
   
         ' Redirect this KeyPress event to the text box:
         If KeyAscii <> ASC_ENTER Then
            SendKeys Chr$(KeyAscii)
         End If
      End Sub
   
   

6. Add the following code to the Text1_KeyPress procedure:

      Private Sub Text1_KeyPress (KeyAscii As Integer)
         If KeyAscii = ASC_ENTER Then
            Grid1.SetFocus  ' Set focus back to grid, see Text_LostFocus.
            KeyAscii = 0    ' Ignore this KeyPress.
         End If
      End Sub
   
   

7. Add the following code to the Text1_LostFocus procedure:

      Private Sub Text1_LostFocus ()
         Dim tmpRow As Integer
         Dim tmpCol As Integer
   
         ' Save current settings of Grid Row and col. This is needed only if
         ' the focus is set somewhere else in the Grid.
         tmpRow = Grid1.Row
         tmpCol = Grid1.Col
   
         ' Set Row and Col back to what they were before Text1_LostFocus:
         Grid1.Row = gRow
         Grid1.Col = gCol
   
         Grid1.Text = Text1.Text  ' Transfer text back to grid.
         Text1.SelStart = 0       ' Return caret to beginning.
         Text1.Visible = False    ' Disable text box.
   
         ' Return row and Col contents:
         Grid1.Row = tmpRow
         Grid1.Col = tmpCol
      End Sub
   
   

8. In the general Declarations section or in a separate .BAS file, add the following Sub routine:

   Public Sub grid_text_move (Grid As Control, TextBox As Control)

         ' Move a text box to the position of the current cell in a grid:
         Dim X As Single   ' x position of current grid cell.
         Dim Y As Single   ' y position of current grid cell.
         Dim i As Integer  ' Column/row index.
   
         ' Skip grid border:
         X = Grid.Left
         Y = Grid.Top
         If Grid.BorderStyle = 1 Then
            X = X + Screen.TwipsPerPixelX
            Y = Y + Screen.TwipsPerPixelY
         End If
   
         ' Skip fixed columns and rows:
         For i = 0 To Grid.FixedCols - 1
            X = X + Grid.ColWidth(i)
            If Grid.GridLines Then
               X = X + Screen.TwipsPerPixelX
            End If
         Next
         For i = 0 To Grid.FixedRows - 1
            Y = Y + Grid.RowHeight(i)
            If Grid.GridLines Then
               Y = Y + Screen.TwipsPerPixelY
            End If
         Next
   
         ' Find current data cell:
         For i = Grid.LeftCol To Grid.Col - 1
             X = X + Grid.ColWidth(i)
             If Grid.GridLines Then
                 X = X + Screen.TwipsPerPixelX
             End If
         Next
         For i = Grid.TopRow To Grid.Row - 1
             Y = Y + Grid.RowHeight(i)
             If Grid.GridLines Then
                 Y = Y + Screen.TwipsPerPixelY
             End If
         Next
   
         ' Move the Text Box, and make small adjustments:
         TextBox.Move X + Screen.TwipsPerPixelX, Y + Screen.TwipsPerPixelY
      End Sub
   
   

9. Press the F5 key to run the program. Press a key to begin entering text into a cell. Type in some text. Press the ENTER key to finish editing the cell. Use the arrow keys to move to another cell. You can press the ENTER key to begin editing a cell without changing the contents of the cell.