Excel® VBA: 24-Hour Trainer

Chapter 25. Not Gone, Not Forgotten

With each release of Excel, Microsoft typically introduces new features that are meant to help make it easier and more productive to work with your spreadsheets. Over the course of Excel's evolution, older features that were state of the art in their day have been cast aside for newer ways of doing things. Some of those older features are still supported in all versions of Excel, and although they've been largely forgotten, they can still be very useful in some development circumstances.

This lesson looks at two almost-forgotten features: 5.0 dialog sheets and XLM Get.Cell functions. You'll also see examples of the SendKeys method, which is not so much outdated as it is misunderstood. Each of these features can claim its useful place among your collection of VBA tools.

USING DIALOG SHEETS

In Lessons 18, 19, and 20 you learned about UserForms, which first arrived on the Excel scene with ActiveX controls in Office 97. The precursor to UserForms was an interface built from a type of sheet called a 5.0 dialog sheet, which was used in versions Excel 5 and Excel 95. Dialog sheets served the purpose of constructing a customized dialog box that that has almost entirely been superseded by UserForms and their more programmable ActiveX controls.

I like dialog sheets, even in this modern era of Excel VBA. The dialog sheet is a hidden gem that's been mostly a forgotten art, which makes it look like a special feature when used in the right circumstances.

I am not ...