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• ComboBox KeyPress Event Handler limits text typed to only allow an item from the list

ComboBox KeyPress Event Handler limits text typed to only allow an item from the list

This combo box event handler will limit the text typed to only items available from the list. This essentially makes the control into a dropdown list but allows the items to be selected by typing as well as clicking.

Inputs
This will work on any ComboBox. It assumes the control is called Combo1 but obviously, this can be changed.

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' function to intercept keypresses to combo box and allow
' only valid keys (such as are in list)
'
Private Sub Combo1_KeyPress(KeyAscii As Integer)
 Dim NewText As String
 Dim ValidCount As Integer
 Dim ValidValue As String
 ' do only if key pressed is printable character
 If KeyAscii >= 32 And KeyAscii <> 127 Then
 
  ' predict new text after keypress
  NewText = LCase(Left(Combo1.Text, Combo1.SelStart) + Chr(KeyAscii) + Mid(Combo1.Text, Combo1.SelStart + Combo1.SelLength + 1))
  
  ' find number of matches in combo list
  ValidCount = 0
  ValidValue = ""
  For i = 0 To Combo1.ListCount - 1
   If NewText = LCase(Left(Combo1.List(i), Len(NewText))) Then
    ValidCount = ValidCount + 1
    ValidValue = Combo1.List(i)
   End If
  Next
  
  ' cancel keypress if invalid
  If ValidCount <= 1 Then KeyAscii = 0
  ' select if one match only
  If ValidCount = 1 Then
   Combo1.Text = ValidValue
   Combo1.SelStart = 0
   Combo1.SelLength = Len(ValidValue)
  End If
 End If
End Sub