Using Visual Basic to Return Screen Elements (106719)

SUMMARY

In Microsoft Excel, when you develop a custom application that will run on computers with different screen resolutions, it may be useful to determine the amount of space that different workspace elements such as the menu bar, formula bar, status bar and toolbars will use. After you determine the amount of space these element use, you can then determine how and where to position documents and which elements you want to be displayed.

MORE INFORMATION

Microsoft provides programming examples for illustration only, without warranty either expressed or implied. This includes, but is not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. This article assumes that you are familiar with the programming language that is being demonstrated and with the tools that are used to create and to debug procedures. Microsoft support engineers can help explain the functionality of a particular procedure, but they will not modify these examples to provide added functionality or construct procedures to meet your specific requirements. With Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications, you can write code that will retrieve workspace properties. For example the Application.UsableWidth and Application.UsableHeight command allow you to return the width and height (in points) of the workspace.

Sample Macro Code

The following example determines the height of the status bar:

Sub statusbarheight()

   'Declares the Variables as Integers
   Dim Nostatusbar as  Integer
   Dim Withstatusbar as  Integer
   Dim StatusHeight as  Integer
      Application.DisplayStatusBar = False         'Turns status off
      nostatusbar = Application.UsableHeight       'finds height without
                                                   'status bar
      Application.DisplayStatusBar = True          'Turns the status bar on
      withstatusbar = Application.UsableHeight     'Finds height with
                                                   'status bar on
      statusheight = nostatusbar - withstatusbar   'Determines the
                                                   'difference
      MsgBox ("The height of the status bar in points is " & statusheight)

End Sub

REFERENCES

"Visual Basic User's Guide," version 5.0, Chapter 5

For information about returning screen element sizes using the Microsoft Excel 4.0 macro language, please see the following article(s) in the Knowledge Base:

103707 Excel: Using GET.WORKSPACE() to Determine Screen Element Size