How to detect focus change to any control?

Question

In my form, I need to detect if focus is moved to a new control.

Can I do this for the entire form without having to create event procedures for every control?

I've tried this, but it doesn't seem to fire.

Private Sub Form_SelectionChange()
    MsgBox Screen.ActiveControl.Name
End Sub

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 03 '15 at 20:32

0

Yes, use WithEvents. It takes a little and documentation is poor, but it may pay off in the end:

Using Dynamic External Event Procedures

answered Jul 03 '15 at 20:32

Gustav

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Wow, that is a change of approach. I like it - thanks for the reference. Now I just have to digest it. – bgmCoder Jul 03 '15 at 21:45
Can I do this alongside regular click events on the controls? – bgmCoder Jul 03 '15 at 21:53
This will let me create events for controls that don't already use any events; but how do I do both? – bgmCoder Jul 03 '15 at 22:22
Just do it. Your class modul with the WithEvents code is referenced when loading and unloading the form. You can reference more than one class - that's the smart part - so you can add just that functionality for a given form you may require. These will work alongside any "normal" code-behind-form you may have or may add. – Gustav Jul 04 '15 at 06:57

score 0 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:51

0

This creates an event on each control (not exactly what you asked for) but it is pretty clean.

Public Class Form1

Private Sub Form1_Load(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
    For Each control As Control In Controls
        AddHandler control.Enter, AddressOf ControlReceivedFocus
    Next
End Sub

Private Sub ControlReceivedFocus(sender As Object, e As EventArgs)
    MessageBox.Show(sender.ToString())
End Sub

End Class

source: https://stackoverflow.com/a/1159481/2352507

edited May 23 '17 at 11:51

Community

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answered Jul 03 '15 at 20:50

SunsetQuest

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That's an interesting way of doing it. I could filter out some of the unnecessary controls in the for loop. Thanks for the quick answer. – bgmCoder Jul 03 '15 at 21:26
Sorry to say, but you can't do this in VBA it seems. There isn't any `addhandler`, firstly, and you have to use a reference to the parent form in the `for each` statement. See this thread: https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/4cae16a1-9c74-4e2b-bd69-24edf24322cd/is-there-a-vba-for-excel-equivalent-to-addhandler-from-vb?forum=isvvba – bgmCoder Jul 03 '15 at 22:18
That's VB.NET. You need VBA. – Gustav Jul 04 '15 at 06:40

score 0 · Answer 3 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:51

This thread has a solution to add onClick events to controls dynamically. As it turns out, although you can add your own event, you can't add your own event AND have your normal control_click() event, too. It's just that you can set it at runtime via code, and it can be named whatever you want (as long as it is a function).

This sort of answers my question: you CAN add an onclick event to every control dynamically without having to create them in the gui. Here is the syntax which you can put in form_onload if you like:

with Me.myControl
    Me.myControl.OnEnter = "=SomeFunction()"
end with

And here's how to add an .OnEnter event to every textbox control (just call the SetReportControls method from form_open:

Private Sub SetReportControls()
    Dim ctrl As Control
    For Each ctrl In Me.Controls
        With ctrl
            If TypeOf ctrl Is Access.TextBox Then
                .OnEnter = "=ReportControl(false)"
            End If
        End With
    Next
End Sub

Private Function ReportControl(Cancel As Integer)
    msgbox Screen.ActiveControl.Name
End Function

Don't do this. It's a left-over from Access 1.x where you didn't have the option for code-behind-form modules. It may work, but you loose error handling and - even worse - it is a nightmare to maintain as you cannot easily search or browse what functions ar called where. — Gustav, Jul 04 '15 at 07:00
Actually, when you view the controls in the GUI's properties, you can see that the function is attached. You might be right about the error handling, though. — bgmCoder, Jul 04 '15 at 13:10
Yes, you can see one control at a time. But this is very slow process. — Gustav, Jul 04 '15 at 21:01

How to detect focus change to any control?

3 Answers3