Extra! Basic Dialog box manipulation

Question

I need to have cascading DropListBox's for a menu that builds a string. For example if DropListBox1 has three plus options it will display DropListBox2 to DropListBox4 below it depending on selection. Each subsequent DropListBox will need to hide/reveal the appropriate DropListBox selection. I'm unsure if this would best be done by having multiple sub DropListBox's and have them display or hide depending on previous menu selection like the bad example image or if I should propagate each DropListBox with an array. Which would be more efficient? I've been unsuccessful in both hiding / revealing and propagating with arrays. The goal of the dialog box is to create a string that it sends to the terminal. I'm an end user, not a developer but I am putting in earnest effort to learn. 
 My current partially functional dialog looks like: 
 
 Bad Example:

Tom Fitzgibbon · Accepted Answer

Hi David, It's refreshing to see that you pushed ahead and are willing to do the donkey work. Extra! Basic dialogs are not for the faint of heart (or perseverance). Handling the events is not trivial and hence to recommendation to use consulting services. As for Stack Overflow, it is a great resource, I often use it when I'm trying to figure out how to use Win32API calls in both Extra! Basic and 64-bit VBA. I had a play with this and this is what I came up with. I'm using an ini file to store the Category/Subject and Page info. My ini is located at c:	emp\StringBuilderIni.ini (set in the GetList function below) My ini looks like this, where the [ListCat] stores a list of all the Categories ( and is loaded at initialisation, with the default Category being the first in the list ), [My Categories] stores info for each category listed in the [ListCat] section (and the subject associated with the first Category as loaded at initialisation) and finally there are individual Category section which list the number of pages associated with each Subject. [ListCat] MyCategories=Category1, Category2, Category3, Category4 
 [MyCategories] Category1=SubjectA,SubjectB,SubjectC Category2=SubjectB,SubjectC,SubjectD Category3= SubjectD, SubjectE Category4=SubjectV, SubjectW,SubjectX,SubjectY,SubjectZ 
 [Category1] SubjectA=8 SubjectB=2 SubjectC=7 
 [Category2] SubjectB=8 SubjectC=14 SubjectD=12 
 [Category3] SubjectD=7 SubjectE=4 
 [Category4] SubjectV=13 SubjectW=12 SubjectX=10 SubjectY=30 SubjectZ=93 Then in Extra Basic I have the following code. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
 Declare Function GetPrivateProfileString Lib "KERNEL32" Alias "GetPrivateProfileStringA" _ (ByVal lpApplicationName as String, ByVal lpKeyName As String, ByVal lpDefault As String, _ ByVal lpReturenedString as String, ByVal nSize as Long, ByVal lpFileName as String) as Long 
 Declare Function DialogHandler(ID$, Action%, SuppVal&) as Integer Declare Function GetList(Section as String, Key as String) as String 
 ' NOTE it is very important to define the buffer size when ' calling a Winapi function, if you do not define it defaults ' to zero and then your Winapi call will not work. It will ' always return zero. 
 Const Buffer_size = 255 Const MySeperator = "," 
 Dim MyCategory() as String Dim MySubject() as String Dim MyPage() as String Dim MyOptions() as String 
 Sub Main 
 Begin Dialog StringBuilder 374, 182, "My Dynamic Dialog", .DialogHandler DropListBox 4, 6, 81, 16, "Category1", .Category StaticComboBox 89, 6, 112, 153, "", .Subject StaticComboBox 200, 6, 102, 154, "", .Page PushButton 311, 4, 49, 17, "&Send String", .SendString CancelButton 311, 26, 49, 17 End Dialog Dim myStringBuilder as StringBuilder, ret as Integer ret% = Dialog(myStringBuilder) End Sub 
 Function DialogHandler(id$, action%, suppvalue&) 
 Dim myList as String, x as Integer, SeperatorLocation as Integer, MyPageCount as String, PageCount as Integer select case action% Case 1 'initialize dialog controls MyList = GetList("ListCat", "MyCategories") x=0 If InStr(1, MyList, MySeperator) = 0 then ReDim Preserve myCategory(0) myCategory(0) = Trim(MyList) Else Do While InStr(1, MyList, MySeperator) > 1 myList = LTrim(MyList) ReDim Preserve MyCategory(x) SeperatorLocation = InStr(1, MyList, MySeperator) myCategory(x)=Left(MyList, SeperatorLocation-1) MyList = Right(MyList, Len(MyList)-SeperatorLocation) x=x+1 Loop ReDim Preserve myCategory(x) myCategory(x) = LTrim(Right((MyList), Len(MyList))) End If DlgListBoxArray DlgControlID("Category"), myCategory DlgValue DlgControlID("Category"),0 MyList = GetList("MyCategories", myCategory(DlgValue(DlgControlID("Category")))) x=0 If InStr(1, MyList, MySeperator) = 0 then ReDim Preserve MySubject(0) MySubject(0) = Trim(MyList) Else Do While InStr(1, MyList, MySeperator) > 1 myList = LTrim(MyList) ReDim Preserve MySubject(x) SeperatorLocation = InStr(1, MyList, MySeperator) MySubject(x)=Left(MyList, SeperatorLocation-1) MyList = Right(MyList, Len(MyList)-SeperatorLocation) x=x+1 Loop ReDim Preserve MySubject(x) MySubject(x) = Ltrim(Right((MyList), Len(MyList))) End If DlgListBoxArray DlgControlID("Subject"), MySubject DlgListBoxArray DlgControlID("Page"), myOptions Case 2 'button was pressed, radio, checkbox changed Select Case id$ Case "Category" MyList = GetList("MyCategories", myCategory(DlgValue(DlgControlID("Category")))) x=0 If InStr(1, MyList, MySeperator) = 0 then ReDim Preserve MySubject(0) MySubject(0) = Trim(MyList) Else Do While InStr(1, MyList, MySeperator) > 1 myList = LTrim(MyList) ReDim Preserve MySubject(x) SeperatorLocation = InStr(1, MyList, MySeperator) MySubject(x)=Left(MyList, SeperatorLocation-1) MyList = Right(MyList, Len(MyList)-SeperatorLocation) x=x+1 Loop ReDim Preserve MySubject(x) MySubject(x) = Ltrim(Right((MyList), Len(MyList))) End If DlgListBoxArray DlgControlID("Subject"), MySubject DlgListBoxArray DlgControlID("Page"), myOptions 
 Case "Subject" MyPageCount = GetList(myCategory(DlgValue(DlgControlID("Category"))), mySubject(DlgValue(DlgControlID("Subject")))) PageCount = CInt(MyPageCount) ReDim Preserve MyPage(PageCount-1) For i = 0 to PageCount -1 MyPage(i)= i+1 Next i DlgListBoxArray DlgControlID("Page"), MyPage Case "SendString" If DlgValue(DlgControlID("Category")) = -1 or DlgValue(DlgControlID("Subject")) = -1 or DlgValue(DlgControlID("Page")) = -1 then DialogHandler = TRUE ' 'prevent MainDialog from closing Else Msgbox myCategory(DlgValue(DlgControlID("Category"))) & ":" & mySubject(DlgValue(DlgControlID("Subject"))) & ":" & myPage(DlgValue(DlgControlID("Page"))), 64, "My Selected bits" DialogHandler = TRUE ' 'prevent MainDialog from closing End If Case Else 
 End Select 'Other cases are available to handle changes 'in textboxes or lists - see help for "begin dialog". Case 3 'text or combo box changed Case 4 'control focus changed Case 5 'idle 
 End Select 
 End Function 
 Function GetList(Section as String, Key as String) as Variant 
 Dim x, nSize as long Dim FileName as string, Nodename as string, MyList as String 
 x = -999 
 FileName = "c:	emp\StringBuilderIni.ini" Dim Default as String Default = "notFound" Dim RetStr as String*Buffer_size 
 ' Initialize the buffer so it will return more than zero ' bytes ' nsize = Buffer_size 
 x = GetPrivateProfileString(Section, Key, Default, RetStr, nSize, FileName) MyList = mid$(RetStr, 1, x) 
 GetList = MyList 
 End Function --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It likely works in a similar fashion to what you now have, but it demo's how to avoid the multi-dimensional array and it enables one to change the Categories, Subjects and Pages without having to touch the macro. Looking forward to seeing what you eventually end up with. Tom

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