6.1.2.8.1.13 MsgBox

Function Declaration

 Function MsgBox(Prompt As Variant, Optional Buttons As 
 VbMsgBoxStyle = vbOKOnly, Optional Title As Variant, 
 Optional HelpFile As Variant, Optional Context As Variant) As VbMsgBoxResult 

Parameter

Description

Prompt

String to be displayed as the message in the dialog box. The maximum length of prompt is approximately 1024 characters, depending on the width of the characters used. If prompt consists of more than one line, the lines can be separated using a carriage return character (Chr(13)), a linefeed character (Chr(10)), or carriage return + linefeed character combination (Chr(13) & Chr(10)) between each line.

Buttons

Numeric expression that is the sum of values specifying the number and type of buttons to display, the icon style to use, the identity of the default button, and the modality of the message box. If omitted, the default value for Buttons is 0.

Title

String to be displayed in the title bar of the dialog box. If Title is omitted, the project name (section 4.1) is placed in the title bar.

HelpFile

String that identifies the Help file to use to provide context-sensitive Help for the dialog box. If HelpFile is provided, Context MUST also be provided.

Context

Long that is the Help context number assigned to the appropriate Help topic by the Help author. If Context is provided, HelpFile MUST also be provided.

Runtime Semantics.

§ Displays a message in a dialog box, waits for the user to click a button, and returns an Integer indicating which button the user clicked.

§ The Buttons argument settings are:

Constant

Value

Description

vbOKOnly

0

Display OK button only.

vbOKCancel

1

Display OK and Cancel buttons.

vbAbortRetryIgnore

2

Display Abort, Retry, and Ignore buttons.

vbYesNoCancel

3

Display Yes, No, and Cancel buttons.

vbYesNo

4

Display Yes and No buttons.

vbRetryCancel

5

Display Retry and Cancel buttons.

vbCritical

16

Display Critical Message icon.

vbQuestion

32

Display Warning Query icon.

vbExclamation

48

Display Warning Message icon.

vbInformation

64

Display Information Message icon.

vbDefaultButton1

0

First button is default.

vbDefaultButton2

256

Second button is default.

vbDefaultButton3

512

Third button is default.

vbDefaultButton4

768

Fourth button is default.

vbApplicationModal

0

Application modal; the user MUST respond to the message box before continuing work in the current application.

vbSystemModal

4096

System modal; all applications are suspended until the user responds to the message box.

vbMsgBoxHelpButton

16384

Adds Help button to the message box

VbMsgBoxSetForeground

65536

Specifies the message box window as the foreground window

vbMsgBoxRight

524288

Text is right aligned

vbMsgBoxRtlReading

1048576

Specifies text SHOULD appear as right-to-left reading on Hebrew and Arabic systems

§ The first group of values (05) describes the number and type of buttons displayed in the dialog box; the second group (16, 32, 48, 64) describes the icon style; the third group (0, 256, 512) determines which button is the default; and the fourth group (0, 4096) determines the modality of the message box. When adding numbers to create a final value for the buttons argument, use only one number from each group.

§ The MsgBox function can return one of the following values:

Constant

Value

Description

vbOK

1

OK

vbCancel

2

Cancel

vbAbort

3

Abort

vbRetry

4

Retry

vbIgnore

5

Ignore

vbYes

6

Yes

vbNo

7

No

§ When both HelpFile and Context are provided, the user can press F1 to view the Help topic corresponding to the context. Some host applications, for example, Microsoft Excel 2010, also automatically add a Help button to the dialog box.

§ If the dialog box displays a Cancel button, pressing the ESC key has the same effect as clicking Cancel. If the dialog box contains a Help button, context-sensitive Help is provided for the dialog box. However, no value is returned until one of the other buttons is clicked.

§ Note: to specify more than the first named argument, you MUST use MsgBox in an expression.

To omit some positional arguments, you MUST include the corresponding comma delimiter.