XL2000: Redraw Problem Changing Visibility of Object on Dialog Box

When you run a Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications macro that changes the Visible property for a drawing object on a Microsoft Excel 5.0 dialog sheet that is displayed, the border of the drawing object may not appear correctly.

When you set the Visible property to True, the border of the drawing object may not be displayed completely. Conversely, when you set the Visible property to False, the border of the drawing object may not be erased completely.

This problem occurs because Microsoft Excel does not redraw the screen correctly.

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To work around this problem, use a UserForm instead of a Microsoft Excel 5.0 dialog sheet. A UserForm is more flexible and offers more functionality than a Microsoft Excel 5.0 dialog sheet.

If you must use a Microsoft Excel 5.0 dialog sheet, you can use an alternative method. When you change the Visible property for the shape, close the dialog sheet, and then display it again. This forces Microsoft Excel to redraw the screen, which causes the border around the shape to appear correctly. The following example forces Microsoft Excel to do this:

1. Start a new workbook.
2. Right-click a sheet tab in the workbook and click Insert on the shortcut menu that appears.
3. Click MS Excel 5.0 Dialog and click OK.
4. Click Rectangle on the Drawing toolbar and draw a rectangle on the dialog sheet. (If the Drawing toolbar is not displayed, point to Toolbars on the View menu and click Drawing.)
5. For the caption for the OK button, type Toggle, and then click the dialog frame to deselect the button.
6. Press ALT+F11 to start the Visual Basic Editor.
7. On the Insert menu, click Module.
8. Type the following code in the module:
   

      Sub Main()
   
          Dim contin
          'Set the flag to True.
          contin = True
   
          'Continue to show the dialog sheet while Contin is set to
          'True.
          Do While contin
             contin = DialogSheets(1).show
          Loop
   
      End Sub
   
      Sub Toggle()
   
          'Toggle the Visible property of the Rectangle on the
          'dialog sheet.
          DialogSheets(1).Shapes("Rectangle 4").Visible = _
              Not (DialogSheets(1).Shapes("Rectangle 4").Visible)
   
      End Sub
   						

9. On the File menu, click Close and Return to Microsoft Excel.
10. Right-click the Toggle button and click Assign Macro. Select the macro "Toggle" and click OK.
11. On the Tools menu, point to Macro, and then click Macros. Select the macro "Main" and click Run.

The dialog sheet appears. Click the Toggle button to toggle the Visible property of the rectangle on the dialog sheet.

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article.