Sortable List in VBA? - vba

Question

Is there a way to create a VBA user interface that will allow user to order items? See example image taken from a pdf editor.
I want my users to be able to order data in a popout window or list and output their order to a different location. Data is a list of buildings.
Thanks!

Answer 1

For this solution I used a UserForm with a ListBox and a SpinButton control.
I put a list of cells I wanted in my listbox in Column A of Sheet1. I have a generic Building 1, Building 2, etc. through Building 19 so that my data is contained in the range A1:A19 of Sheet1. This is arbitrary and you should change to suit your needs.
This code basically stores the original RowSource that contains the items in the ListBox, deletes the RowSource from the ListBox, rearranges the underlying source data and then re-applies the RowSource to the ListBox in the new order after the user clicks either up or down on the SpinButton
I did not change the default control names (UserForm1, SpinButton1, ListBox1).
Open the VB Editor (either Developer tab --> Visual Basic or press ALT+F11
Right click Microsoft Excel Objects --> Insert --> UserForm
Add a SpinButton and a ListBox so the UserForm looks like so
In the VB Editor, right click UserForm1 under Forms --> View Code
Paste the following code in
Private Sub UserForm_Initialize()
'Populate the UserForm with data from range A1:A19 (arbitrary, change to suit your needs
ListBox1.RowSource = Sheet1.Range(Sheet1.Range("A1"), Sheet1.Range("A1").End(xlDown)).Address
End Sub
Private Sub SpinButton1_SpinDown()
With ListBox1
If .ListIndex = .ListCount - 1 Then Exit Sub 'No item selected or we are in the last position
lCurrentListIndex = .ListIndex + 1 'Get the current position of the item
strRowSource = .RowSource 'Get the current row source
strAddress = Range(strRowSource).Address 'Address of the row source range
strSheetName = Range(strRowSource).Parent.Name 'Grab the parent sheet name
.RowSource = vbNullString 'Empty the listbox
'Re-arrange the underlying data
With Range(strRowSource)
.Rows(lCurrentListIndex).Cut
.Rows(lCurrentListIndex + 2).Insert Shift:=xlDown
End With
'Re-apply the row source
.RowSource = strRowSource
'For continuity, select the previously selected element in its new position
.Selected(lCurrentListIndex) = True
End With
End Sub
Private Sub SpinButton1_SpinUp()
Dim lCurrentListIndex As Long
Dim strRowSource As String
Dim strAddress As String
Dim strSheetName As String
With ListBox1
If .ListIndex < 1 Then Exit Sub 'No item selected or we are in the first position
lCurrentListIndex = .ListIndex + 1
strRowSource = .RowSource
strAddress = Range(strRowSource).Address
strSheetName = Range(strRowSource).Parent.Name
.RowSource = vbNullString
With Range(strRowSource)
.Rows(lCurrentListIndex).Cut
.Rows(lCurrentListIndex - 1).Insert Shift:=xlDown
End With
.RowSource = strRowSource
.Selected(lCurrentListIndex - 2) = True
End With
End Sub
I tried to add comments to clarify what I am doing. It is a slightly cumbersome method, and was adapted from code available here. If you click the Debug (looks like play) button the form should display and populate with the values of cells A1:A19 of Sheet1. You can then select an item in the ListBox and press the up or down buttons of the SpinButton in order to move items up or down the list. An important assumption is that MultiSelect is disabled on this ListBox.
Ordinarily I would not post such an in-depth solution without seeing what you tried, but this problem piqued my curiosity.