Common dialog control

[Nicolas Beaupré]

Hi,

I’ve already seen in VB a control in the toolbox that allow me to select a path and a file by browsing in my computer with an automatic dialog window such as the one in attachment. The dialog should return a string containing the path of the file.

Usually this component can be added to the toolbox by right-clicking on it a choose “additionnal controls”. I know the control I’m looking for is a “Common Dialog Control”. The problem is : when I clik to add ths control to my form, I got this message : the control cannot be created because it is not properly licensed. I’ve asked for it on different forum and the problem seem to come from flexpro.

Microsoft have a patch to solve this problem, but it need to have VB6.0 installed, not a VBA application.

http://support.microsoft.com/defaul…kb;EN-US;194751

Is there another way I can get my dialog window ?
Thanks

[Nicolas Beaupré]

Hi,

I’ve already seen in VB a control in the toolbox that allow me to select a path and a file by browsing in my computer with an automatic dialog window such as the one in attachment. The dialog should return a string containing the path of the file.

Usually this component can be added to the toolbox by right-clicking on it a choose “additionnal controls”. I know the control I’m looking for is a “Common Dialog Control”. The problem is : when I clik to add ths control to my form, I got this message : the control cannot be created because it is not properly licensed. I’ve asked for it on different forum and the problem seem to come from flexpro.

Microsoft have a patch to solve this problem, but it need to have VB6.0 installed, not a VBA application.

http://support.microsoft.com/defaul…kb;EN-US;194751

Is there another way I can get my dialog window ?
Thanks

[Bernhard Kantz]

You need a design-time license for the “Common Dialog Control”. This design time license comes together with VB 6.0, unfortunately not with VBA.
So if you have VB installed on your system you can use the control also in VBA. If you redistribute a VBA project which uses the control and you simply install (copy+register) the control on the target machine it will work fine at run-time. On the other hand you will not be able to add a new instance of the control on the target machine.

To get the dialog box without the “Common Dialog Control” is possible, as the functionality is provided by a Windows API. This requires some more work, see for instance http://www.activevb.de/tipps/vb6tipps/tipp0368.html for a VB-example. This should basically work also with VBA.

Support
support@weisang.com

[Nicolas Beaupré]

Then, why is it possible to call this windows in word or excel VBA and not in flexpro ?

In excel, I open it with that line : Application.GetOpenFileName

And in word : Application.Dialogs(wdDialogFileOpen).Display

[Bernhard Kantz]

This is possible, because Word and Excel have (re-)implemented the Open-File-dialog-box functionality in their object model. As this is a rather generic functionality it is currently missing from the object model of FlexPro 7.0 (of cause it might be added in a future version).
As pointed out before it is no problem to use the Windows API directly. If you prefer an OCX based approach you might take a look at the pages of the Common Controls Replacement Project, especially at http://ccrp.mvps.org/controls/ccrpfiledlg5.htm.

Support
support@weisang.com

[Nicolas Beaupré]

Thanks,

The API method is working fine!

[Nicolas Beaupré]

In the same kind, how is it possible to just select a path ? I would like the user to select an empty (or not) folder where he want a batch of files to be exported bye the VBA macro… The API function above only allow us to select a specific file, not a path.
(sorry I can’t dig myself on the website you gave me because I don’t know a word of German!)

[Bernhard Kantz]

The SHBrowseForFolder API can be used for folder selection. A Google search for “SHBrowseForFolder VBA” should reveal some application examples.

Support
support@weisang.com

[Stefan Palaveev]

The API method from the page http://www.activevb.de/tipps/vb6tipps/tipp0368.html you refer to is not working because of:

What is an alternative handle, which works?

[Bernhard Kantz]

This code is an example for Visual Basic. In VBA there is no window handle.
Try Nothing instead of Me.hWnd.

support@weisang.com

[Stefan Palaveev]

Hi,
finally I was successful. For all of you having the same problems here the code for opening a common dialog windows for files and for folders.

Private Declare Function GetOpenFileName Lib "comdlg32.dll" _
    Alias "GetOpenFileNameA" (pOpenfilename As OPENFILENAME) _
        As Long

Declare Function SHGetPathFromIDList Lib "shell32.dll" _
   Alias "SHGetPathFromIDListA" (ByVal pidl As Long, _
   ByVal pszPath As String) As Long

Declare Function SHBrowseForFolder Lib "shell32.dll" _
   Alias "SHBrowseForFolderA" (lpBrowseInfo As BROWSEINFO) As Long

Private Type OPENFILENAME
    lStructSize As Long
    hwndOwner As Long
    hInstance As Long
    lpstrFilter As String
    lpstrCustomFilter As String
    nMaxCustFilter As Long
    nFilterIndex As Long
    lpstrFile As String
    nMaxFile As Long
    lpstrFileTitle As String
    nMaxFileTitle As Long
    lpstrInitialDir As String
    lpstrTitle As String
    Flags As Long
    nFileOffset As Integer
    nFileExtension As Integer
    lpstrDefExt As String
    lCustData As Long
    lpfnHook As Long
    lpTemplateName As String
End Type

Public Type BROWSEINFO
    hOwner As Long
    pidlRoot As Long
    pszDisplayName As String
    lpszTitle As String
    ulFlags As Long
    lpfn As Long
    lParam As Long
    iImage As Long
End Type

Public Const OFN_ALLOWMULTISELECT As Long = &H200&
Public Const OFN_CREATEPROMPT As Long = &H2000&
Public Const OFN_ENABLEHOOK As Long = &H20&
Public Const OFN_ENABLETEMPLATE As Long = &H40&
Public Const OFN_ENABLETEMPLATEHANDLE As Long = &H80&
Public Const OFN_EXPLORER As Long = &H80000
Public Const OFN_EXTENSIONDIFFERENT As Long = &H400&
Public Const OFN_FILEMUSTEXIST As Long = &H1000&
Public Const OFN_HIDEREADONLY As Long = &H4&
Public Const OFN_LONGNAMES As Long = &H200000
Public Const OFN_NOCHANGEDIR As Long = &H8&
Public Const OFN_NODEREFERENCELINKS As Long = &H100000
Public Const OFN_NOLONGNAMES As Long = &H40000
Public Const OFN_NONETWORKBUTTON As Long = &H20000
Public Const OFN_NOREADONLYRETURN As Long = &H8000&
Public Const OFN_NOTESTFILECREATE As Long = &H10000
Public Const OFN_NOVALIDATE As Long = &H100&
Public Const OFN_OVERWRITEPROMPT As Long = &H2&
Public Const OFN_PATHMUSTEXIST As Long = &H800&
Public Const OFN_READONLY As Long = &H1&
Public Const OFN_SHAREAWARE As Long = &H4000&
Public Const OFN_SHAREFALLTHROUGH As Long = 2&
Public Const OFN_SHARENOWARN As Long = 1&
Public Const OFN_SHAREWARN As Long = 0&
Public Const OFN_SHOWHELP As Long = &H10&

Public Function ShowOpen(Filter As String, Flags As Long, hWnd As Long) As String
        
    Dim Buffer As String
    Dim Result As Long
    Dim ComDlgOpenFileName As OPENFILENAME
    
    Buffer = String$(128, 0)
    
    With ComDlgOpenFileName
        .lStructSize = Len(ComDlgOpenFileName)
        .hwndOwner = hWnd
        .Flags = Flags
        .nFilterIndex = 1&
        .nMaxFile = Len(Buffer)
        .lpstrFile = Buffer
        .lpstrFilter = Filter
    End With
    
    Result = GetOpenFileName(ComDlgOpenFileName)
    
    If Result  0 Then
        ShowOpen = Left$(ComDlgOpenFileName.lpstrFile, _
                   InStr(ComDlgOpenFileName.lpstrFile, _
                   Chr$(0)) - 1)
    End If
End Function

Function GetDirectory(Msg) As String
    Dim bInfo As BROWSEINFO
    Dim path As String
    Dim r As Long, x As Long, pos As Integer
    With bInfo
        .pidlRoot = 0&
        .lpszTitle = Msg
        .ulFlags = &H1
    End With
    x = SHBrowseForFolder(bInfo)
    path = Space$(512)
    r = SHGetPathFromIDList(ByVal x, ByVal path)
    If r Then
        pos = InStr(path, Chr$(0))
        GetDirectory = Left(path, pos - 1)
    Else
        GetDirectory = ""
    End If
End Function



Sub ProgramStart()

'-------- Choose a File----------------
Dim sFile As String

Dim Filter As String, Flags As Long
      
    Flags = OFN_FILEMUSTEXIST Or OFN_HIDEREADONLY Or _
            OFN_PATHMUSTEXIST
    Filter = "FlexPro (*.fpd)"
        
        
sFile = ShowOpen(Filter, Flags, 0)
'------------------------------------------

'-------Choose a Folder-------------

Dim  sFolder As String

sFolder = GetDirectory("Choose a Folder")
'---------------------------------------
End Sub

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