Narrowing down selection from a dropdown list

[mbrijun]

Hello all,

I would like to find out if anyone knows a way to display a dropdown list with the items that match user's partial input? For example, if the list is

Apple
Orange
Pineapple
Peach

and the user types in "P" and then clicks on the drop-down arrow, only Pineapple and Peach are displayed.

Thank you for your answers.

 

[Vanhornet]

I know if you start to type a name and do a CTRL+K in Outlook 2003 it will open a list like that. Not sure if it works in other versions of outlook.

 

[fumei]

1. Vanhornet's post mentions Outlook, but is this in fact regarding Outlook? Please give your relevant application and version when you post.

2. User input...where? By "partial" one can assume the user is typing in somewhere....but where? Into a textbox? A Inputbox? A Userform? Into a Word document? Into an Excel cell? An Outlook email? An Outlook form?

Gerry

 

[mbrijun]

Hi Vanhornet and Gerry,

you are damn right - I have not specified this was all to dow with Excel! Sorry about the blunder.

 

[fumei]

OK...we have the application. However, that is only a start. Please clarify the other questions. The user is typing in......

So it is Excel. Are you asking about the user typing in text into a specific cell? Any cell? They type in "ap" in a cell and then click on a - what? A Form dropdown? an ActiveX control dropdown?

If you are going to ask us for assistance (which we are glad to do), you have to spell it out. We are not looking over your shoulder, nor are we mind readers. I am not being critical, it is simply that we have no idea what you are doing unless you tell us, and we have no idea of what you have done...unless you tell us.

Have you in fact tried something already? I have no idea if you have, or not. If you have tried something...what have you tried?

It is also helpful to state WHY you are doing something. That way it is possible that we could suggest something that may work better.

Gerry

 

[mbrijun]

Hi Gerry,

thank you for your reply. Point about being more specific taken.

The list is on a named range called CustomerID, consisting of around 3000 records. A separate worksheet consists of multiple rows, each row containing a field CustomerID. Now, to assist the person entering the data, the CustomerID field is limited to the values from the named range.

Currently this is implemented by defining a Validation rule for the cells that hold the CustomerID info. This is done by going to Data > Validation > Settings and changing the Validation criteria to "List" and then giving the Source as the named range CustomerID. In-Cell dropdown is selected.

The inconvenience of this approach is that the list is not accepting partial input to filter down the selection.

I was thinking of using a Combo box control for this purpose instead. Do you think this would be the right approach?

Thank you for your attention.