ACC: How to Create Floating Pop-Up Menus (95/97)

ID: Q148833

The information in this article applies to:

SUMMARY

Advanced: Requires expert coding, interoperability, and multiuser skills.

This article shows you how to use a combination of Microsoft Windows application programming interface (API) calls and Visual Basic for Applications code to create "floating" pop-up menus.

This article assumes that you are familiar with Visual Basic for Applications and with creating Microsoft Access applications using the programming tools provided with Microsoft Access. For more information about Visual Basic for Applications, please refer to your version of the "Building Applications with Microsoft Access" manual.

MORE INFORMATION

To create a floating pop-up menu, follow these steps:

1. Create a new form called Pop-up Menu Form.

2. Add a list box control called Menu to the form. Make the control 

   large enough so that it is able to display each of the strings it
   will contain without displaying a scroll bar. Set the control's
   properties as follows:

      Name:          Menu
      RowSourceType: Value List
      RowSource:     String1;String2;String3;String4
      AfterUpdate:  =ItemSelected([Menu])
      Left:          0 in
      Top:           0 in
      FontName:      System
      FontSize:      8
      FontWeight:    Bold

   NOTE: Specify the menu strings in the RowSource property. Separate
   the string values with a semicolon (;).
3. Change the properties of the Pop-up Menu Form as follows: 

      Pop-up Menu Form
      ---------------------------------------------------
      ScrollBars:         Neither
      RecordSelectors:    No
      NavigationButtons   No
      PopUp:              Yes
      Width:              <Width of the list box control>

      Section Properties
      ----------------------------------------------------
      Height:             <Height of the list box control>
4. Save the form and close it.

5. Create a new module and type the following code in the Declarations 

   section of the module.

      ' NOTE: Some of the following Windows API functions may be
      ' defined in an existing Microsoft Access library. If so, the new
      ' declarations would cause a duplication procedure name error. If
      ' this error occurs, remove the offending declare statement from
      ' your code or convert the declaration to a comment.

      Option Explicit
      Type POINTAPI
          x As Long
          y As Long
      End Type

      Global Const GWL_STYLE = (-16)
      Global Const WS_DLGFRAME = &H400000

      Declare Function GetCursorPos Lib "user32" (lpPoint As POINTAPI) _
           As Long
      Declare Function GetWindowLong Lib "user32" Alias "GetWindowLongA" _
          (ByVal hwnd As Long, ByVal nIndex As Long) As Long
      Declare Function SetWindowLong Lib "user32" Alias "SetWindowLongA" _
          (ByVal hwnd As Long, ByVal nIndex As Long, ByVal dwNewLong _
          As  Long) As Long
6. Type the following functions: 

      Function ShowPopup ()
         Dim coord As POINTAPI
         Dim attr&

         GetCursorPos coord
         DoCmd.OpenForm "Pop-up Menu Form"

         attr& = GetWindowLong(Forms![Pop-up Menu Form].hWnd, GWL_STYLE)
         attr& = SetWindowLong(Forms![Pop-up Menu Form].hWnd, GWL_STYLE, _
                    attr& And Not WS_DLGFRAME)

         DoCmd.MoveSize (coord.x * 14), (coord.y * 14), , 1100
      End Function

      Function ItemSelected (WhichItem As String)
         DoCmd.Close
         MsgBox "The selected item was " & Trim(WhichItem)
      End Function
7. Compile the module by clicking Compile Loaded Modules on the Run menu.
8. Select the form in which you want the pop-up menu to appear. Open the 
   form in Design view.
9. Select the event property that you want to use to activate the pop-up 
   menu and specify the following function call:

      =ShowPopup()
NOTE: To see how this works, you may want to specify the function for the DblClick event of a text box.

When you open the form and cause the event assigned in Step 9 to execute, the pop-up menu appears at the current mouse position. The menu remains on the screen until you select an item from the pop-up menu.

Additional query words: 

Keywords          : kbprg
Version           : 7.0 97
Platform          : WINDOWS
Hardware          : x86
Issue type        : kbhowto

Last Reviewed: November 20, 1998