Question

With the Top and Left arguments for this function is there a Centre screen option, or will it always be a number?

I’m using this instead of a regular inputbox as it handles the cancel event better but it always appears in the bottom right of the screen which is less than helpful :/

Answer 1

You can test the regular inputbox to see if cancel was pressed, and it has the extra benifit of always being centered. Just use StrPtr(variable) = 0 to test it. Simple!

Another way to avoid a user hitting OK with nothing typed is to add a default value inside the input box to start with, that way you know that if it returns an empty string, it’s most likely due to the cancel button being pressed.

StrPtr will return a 0 if cancel was selected (also returns 0 for vbNullString, btw). Please note that StrPtr work in VB5, VB6, and VBA, but since it’s not officially supported, it could be rendered unusuable years down the line. I highly doubt they’d get rid of it but it’s worth considering if this is an application you plan to distribute.

Sub CancelTest()

Dim temp As String

temp = InputBox("Enter your name", "Cancel Test")
If StrPtr(temp) = 0 Then
    ' You pressed cancel
Else
    If temp = "" Then
        'You pressed OK but entered nothing
    Else
        'Do your thing
    End If
End If

End Sub

Some more info on strptr:
StrPtr(S) returns a pointer to the actual string data currently stored in S. This is what you need when passing the string to Unicode API calls. The pointer you get points to the Datastring field, not the Length prefix field. In COM terminology, StrPtr returns the value of the BSTR pointer. (from the fantastic site: http://www.aivosto.com/vbtips/stringopt2.html)