Assign event handlers to controls on user form created dynamically in VBA - vba

Question

I have found many resources on the internet that do almost what i want to do, but not quite.I have a named range "daylist". For each day in the dayList, i want to create a button on a user form that will run the macro for that day. I am able to add the buttons dynamically but dont know how to pass the daycell.text from the named range, to the button, to the event handler, to the macro :S Heres the code i have to create the user form:
Sub addLabel()
ReadingsLauncher.Show vbModeless
Dim theLabel As Object
Dim labelCounter As Long
Dim daycell As Range
Dim btn As CommandButton
Dim btnCaption As String
For Each daycell In Range("daylist")
btnCaption = daycell.Text
Set theLabel = ReadingsLauncher.Controls.Add("Forms.Label.1", btnCaption, True)
With theLabel
.Caption = btnCaption
.Left = 10
.Width = 50
.Top = 20 * labelCounter
End With
Set btn = ReadingsLauncher.Controls.Add("Forms.CommandButton.1", "runButton", True)
With btn
.Caption = "Run Macro for " & btnCaption
.Left = 80
.Width = 80
.Top = 20 * labelCounter
' .OnAction = "btnPressed"
End With
labelCounter = labelCounter + 1
Next daycell
End Sub
To get around the above issue i currently prompt the user to type the day they want to run (e.g. Day1) and pass this to the macro and it works:
Sub B45runJoinTransactionAndFMMS()
loadDayNumber = InputBox("Please type the day you would like to load:", Title:="Enter Day", Default:="Day1")
Call JoinTransactionAndFMMS(loadDayNumber)
End Sub
Sub JoinTransactionAndFMMS(loadDayNumber As String)
xDayNumber = loadDayNumber
Sheets(xDayNumber).Activate
-Do stuff
End Sub
So for each of my runButtons, it needs to display daycell.text, and run a macro that uses that same text as a parameter to select the worksheet to do its stuff on.
Any help would be awesome. Ive seen responses that dynamically writes the vba code, to handle the macros, but i believe there must be someway it can be done a little more elegantly through passing parameters, just not sure how. Many thanks in advance!

Answer 1

I know you have accepted a solution now that will work for you and is much simpler than the below, but if you're interested, this would be the more direct answer to your question.
You need to create a class to handle the button clicks, so every time the button is clicked it uses the event in the class, you only need to do this once then create a new instance of it for every button. To stop these classes going out of scope and being lost, they need storing in a class level declaration. In the below I've moved your code around a little.
In the class module (I've called it cButtonHandler)
Public WithEvents btn As MSForms.CommandButton
Private Sub btn_Click()
MsgBox btn.Caption
End Sub
With events is used as it allows you to use most of the events for the control. I've moved the button generation code into the userform as below:
Dim collBtns As Collection
Private Sub UserForm_Initialize()
Dim theLabel As Object
Dim labelCounter As Long
Dim daycell As Range
Dim btn As CommandButton
Dim btnCaption As String
'Create a variable of our events class
Dim btnH As cButtonHandler
'Create a new collection to hold the classes
Set collBtns = New Collection
For Each daycell In Range("daylist")
btnCaption = daycell.Text
Set theLabel = ReadingsLauncher.Controls.Add("Forms.Label.1", btnCaption, True)
With theLabel
.Caption = btnCaption
.Left = 10
.Width = 50
.Top = 20 * labelCounter
End With
Set btn = ReadingsLauncher.Controls.Add("Forms.CommandButton.1", "runButton", True)
With btn
.Caption = "Run Macro for " & btnCaption
.Left = 80
.Width = 80
.Top = 20 * labelCounter
'Create a new instance of our events class
Set btnH = New cButtonHandler
'Set the button we have created as the button in the class
Set btnH.btn = btn
'Add the class to the collection so it is not lost
'when this procedure finishes
collBtns.Add btnH
End With
labelCounter = labelCounter + 1
Next daycell
End Sub
Then we can call the useform from a separate routine:
Sub addLabel()
ReadingsLauncher.Show vbModeless
End Sub
Classes in VBA aren't particularly well covered in many VBA books (generally you need to read VB6 books to get an understanding), however once you understand them and how they work, they become incredibly useful :)
Hope this helps
EDIT - to address additional queries
To refer to objects in a collection, this is either done through the key or the index. To use the key, you need to add it as you add the item to the collection, so:
collBtns.Add btnH
Would become
collBtns.Add btnH, btnCaption
For this reason, keys must be unique. You can then refer as follows:
'We refer to objects in a collection via the collection's key
'Or by it's place in the collection
'So either:
MsgBox collBtns("Monday").btn.Caption
'or:
MsgBox collBtns(1).btn.Caption
'We can then access it's properties and methods
'N.B you won't get any intellisense
collBtns("Monday").btn.Enabled = False
You can also add additional properties/method to your class if required, so for example:
Public WithEvents btn As MSForms.CommandButton
Private Sub btn_Click()
MsgBox btn.Caption
End Sub
Public Property Let Enabled(value As Boolean)
btn.Enabled = value
End Property
Would then be accessed:
collBtns("Monday").Enabled = False
Does this help? For further reading I would point you towards Chip Pearson's site, he has great stuff on most topics http://www.cpearson.com/excel/Events.aspx
Just remember that VBA is based on VB6 so is not a fully fledged OO language, for example, it does not support inheritance in the normal sense, only interface inheritance
Hope this helps :)

Answer 2

Example of catching click on worksheet. Put this in the worksheet module:
Private Sub Worksheet_SelectionChange(ByVal Target As Range)
' e.g., range(A1:E1) is clicked
If Not Application.Intersect(Target, Range("A1:E1")) Is Nothing Then
MsgBox "You clicked " & Target.Address
End If
End Sub