Most of the Office VBA solutions I produce include userforms and the usual controls are there - textboxes, commandbuttons, checkboxes and dropdowns - to present an easy-to-use, functional user interface. 

I have also been including custom “popup” menus with many of the userforms due to the nature of the solution, most often used within textboxes.  (A right-click in the textbox shows the popup as expected).  I found the base code on the net a few years ago and use it often. Full credit here to an author unknown!  I have used the code verbatim - except for the actual menu item captions and related functions - in Excel, Word, PowerPoint and OutLook VBA.

Once recent solution for MS Outlook uses this technique to provide ease in extracting start and end date information from freeform Outlook message text.  The dates are in various formats, and are needed in yy/mm/dd format.  In this case, a custom pop-up with the menu items “Start Date” and “End Date” is used.  When the date text is selected from within the text box, the Start Date menu option converts the selected text into the required format, and appends the time 00:00:00 for beginning-of-day. Similarly, when the end date provided is selected, the End Date menu option converts the selected text into the same format and appends the time 23:59:59.

The resulting values are dropped into individual text boxes for later use.

The userform’s initialize event drives the creation of the popup menu(s).  A menu needs to be created for each userform control requiring a popup, as well as for the userform itself as needed. 

Some code has to be included for the control’s “mouse_up” event to first check for a right-click (button2) and then for the selected menu item.  If the same functionality is required for all of the same type of control on the form - like an array of textboxes - then a class module should be set up with the mouse_up event holding the corresponding code.

Finally, the userform’s terminate event requires a little code to destroy the popups previously created. 

A set of APIs and some globals are also required.

Popup menus may not be for everyone - CTRL+C, CTRL+V are surely favourites for some. They can however greatly enhance userform usability.

Userform Code

(You’ll need 3 textboxes on the form - txtEx1, txtEx2, txtBody)

Private Declare Function ShellExecute Lib “shell32.dll” Alias “ShellExecuteA” _
(ByVal hwnd As Long, ByVal lpOperation As String, ByVal lpFile As String, _
ByVal lpParameters As String, ByVal lpDirectory As String, ByVal nShowCmd As Long) As Long
Private Declare Function SendMessage Lib “user32″ _
Alias “SendMessageA” (ByVal hwnd As Long, _
ByVal wMsg As Long, ByVal wParam As Long, _
lParam As Any) As Long
Private Sub txtBody_MouseUp(ByVal Button As Integer, ByVal Shift As Integer, ByVal X As Single, ByVal Y As Single)If Button = 2 Then
GetCursorPos pt
lngID = TrackPopupMenuEx(lngMnuTB, TPM_RETURNCMD, pt.X, _
pt.Y, lngHwndTB, ByVal 0&) Select Case lngID
Case 1
txtEx1.Text = Trim(Replace(txtBody.SelText, Chr(13), “”))
Case 2
txtEx2.Text = Trim(Replace(txtBody.SelText, Chr(13), “”))
End SelectEnd IfEnd Sub
Private Sub UserForm_Initialize()

Module Code

Type MENUITEMINFO
cbSize As Long
fMask As Long
fType As Long
fState As Long
wID As Long
hSubMenu As Long
hbmpChecked As Long
hbmpUnchecked As Long
dwItemData As Long
dwTypeData As String
cch As Long
End TypeType POINTAPI
X As Long
Y As Long
End TypeDeclare Function GetCursorPos Lib "user32" _
(lpPoint As POINTAPI) As LongDeclare Function CreatePopupMenu Lib _
“user32″ () As LongDeclare Function TrackPopupMenuEx Lib "user32" _
(ByVal hMenu As Long, ByVal un As Long, _
ByVal n1 As Long, ByVal n2 As Long, _
ByVal hwnd As Long, lpTPMParams As Any) As Long