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How To Create a Default Value for Custom Controls and Classes

Article ID: 161052

Article Last Modified on 6/29/2004

APPLIES TO

This article was previously published under Q161052

SUMMARY

Microsoft Visual Basic 5.0 and 6.0 allow you to create custom controls and Classes that have a default property. This behavior is similar to the intrinsic TextBox control. The TextBox control has a default value that corresponds to the string value of its Text property. This allows the following code to behave identically: 
   MsgBox Text1.Text
-and- 
   MsgBox Text1
Both will display a dialog box containing the Text shown within the TextBox.

MORE INFORMATION

To set an existing property as the default value for a custom control or Class, do the following:

  1. Load your custom control project into Microsoft Visual Basic.
  2. In the Project window, right-click your custom control or Class. Click View Code.
  3. On the Tools menu, click Procedure Attributes.
  4. In the Name field, select the property you wish to set as the default.
  5. Click Advanced.
  6. In the Procedure ID field, select Default. Click OK.
The selected property is now automatically returned when you reference an instance of your control: 
   Msgbox UserControl1.MyProperty
-and- 
   Msgbox UserControl1
are equivalent statements.

REFERENCES

Microsoft Visual Basic version 5.0 Books Online
Component Tools Guide. "General Principles of Component Design"

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