by Geoff Temple (1 Submission)
Category: String Manipulation
Compatability: Visual Basic 3.0
Difficulty: Intermediate
Date Added: Wed 3rd February 2021
Rating: 
(6 Votes)
This small and very simple sub will format the caption of a Label control if the text is too big to display in the control. The sub will trucate the text and append "..." to the end of the text (indicating to the user that they are not seeing the full text). VB automatically wordwraps the caption of a label if it is too big, however, this results in the caption being truncated only where there is a space. Also, you can see the top of the next line of the caption.
Example
Make and Model: Cadillac
becomes:
Make and Model: Cadillac Eldor...
I find this extremely useful when I don't know the maximum length of the text the label will contain, or if I don't have enough screen real estate to make the Label big enough.
Just pass a label to this sub for formatting.
Inputs
A label control.
VBcoders'This small and very simple sub will format the
'caption of a Label control if the text is too
'big to display in the control. The sub will
'trucate the text and append "..." to the end
'of the text (indicating to the user that they
'are not seeing the full text). VB automatically
'wordwraps the caption of a label if it is too
'big, however, this results in the caption being
'truncated only where there is a space. Also,
'you can see the top of the next line of the caption.
'Example
'Make and Model: Cadillac
'becomes:
'Make and Model: Cadillac Eldor...
'I find this extremely useful when I don't know the
'maximum length of the text the label will contain,
'or if I don't have enough screen real estate to
'make the Label big enough.
Private Sub AutoSizeCaption(lbl As Label)
Dim i As Integer
Dim iLabelWidth As Integer
Dim sText As String
Const kMore = "..."
' store orignal caption and width
sText = lbl.Caption
' numeric or date? Don't format.
If IsNumeric(lbl.Caption) Or IsDate(lbl.Caption) Then Exit Sub
iLabelWidth = lbl.Width
' allow label to "spring" to it's actual width
lbl.AutoSize = True
' is required width of label < actual width?
If lbl.Width > iLabelWidth Then
i = Len(sText) - 1
Do
lbl.Caption = Left(sText, i) & kMore
i = i - 1
Loop Until (lbl.Width <= iLabelWidth) Or (i = 0)
End If
Exit_Sub:
lbl.AutoSize = False
lbl.Width = iLabelWidth
Exit Sub
ErrorHandler:
' something went wrong ... put everything back
lbl.Caption = sText
Resume Exit_Sub
End Sub
