Anything better than autocomplete?

[drewdog]

I'd like to allow the user to type a few letters and move to the item i
a list that starts with these.

In autocomplete, not only does the list have to be on the worksheet i
question, but I believe it has to be in a contiguous cell (no space
between where you are entering and where the "autocomplete" info is).

I'm doing most of my lists with validation. List boxes are possible
but I believe they are bulky data wise, and will swell the size of th
workbook, slowing it down (shared over a network).

Any thoughts?

Dre

 

[Earl Kiosterud]

Drew,

Excel doesn't have any such functionality, to my knowledge. A macro can't
get a hold of characters as they're typed, because macros don't run while
Excel is in Enter or Edit mode. Probably the only way would be to trap
every key with OnKey. Then all that would have to be disabled for normal
entry into cells. Doable, I think, but not straightforward.

 

[Earl Kiosterud]

Drew,

Hey, it occurs to me that a TextBox from the Control Toolbox could do this
(what a good night's sleep can do!). The problem is that when the text box
has focus, you can't see the cell selection, and when a cell is selected,
the text box doesn't have focus (hence, no cursor). But I think the code
for the text box could also color the row for visibility. Since you haven't
posted this in .programming, I don't know if you're willing to pursue
working on some code. I don't think it would be very difficult, and might
be useful to others. I'll wait to hear back.
--
Earl Kiosterud
mvpearl omitthisword at verizon period net
-------------------------------------------

Drew,

Excel doesn't have any such functionality, to my knowledge. A macro can't
get a hold of characters as they're typed, because macros don't run while
Excel is in Enter or Edit mode. Probably the only way would be to trap
every key with OnKey. Then all that would have to be disabled for normal
entry into cells. Doable, I think, but not straightforward.