MouseDown Event

Private Sub object_MouseDown(Button As Integer, Shift As Integer, X As Single, Y As Single)

Object    The name of a Form, Form section, or control on a Form.

Button    The button that was pressed (MouseDown) or released (MouseUp) to trigger the event. If you need to test for the Button argument, you can use one of the following intrinsic constants as bit masks:

Constant Description

acLeftButton The bit mask for the left mouse button.

acRightButton The bit mask for the right mouse button.

acMiddleButton The bit mask for the middle mouse button.

Shift    The state of the SHIFT, CTRL, and ALT keys when the button specified by the Button argument was pressed or released. If you need to test for the Shift argument, you can use one of the following intrinsic constants as bit masks:

Constant Description

acShiftMask The bit mask for the SHIFT key.

acCtrlMask The bit mask for the CTRL key.

acAltMask The bit mask for the ALT key.

X, Y    The x and y coordinates for the current location of the mouse pointer. The X and Y arguments are always expressed in twips.

Remarks

• The MouseDown event applies only to forms, form sections, and controls on a form, not controls on a report.
• This event does not apply to a label attached to another control, such as the label for a text box. It applies only to "freestanding" labels. Pressing and releasing a mouse button in an attached label has the same effect as pressing and releasing the button in the associated control. The normal events for the control occur; no separate events occur for the attached label.

To run a macro or event procedure when these events occur, set the OnMouseDown property to the name of the macro or to [Event Procedure].

You can use a MouseDown event to specify what happens when a particular mouse button is pressed or released. Unlike the Click and DblClick events, the MouseDown event enables you to distinguish between the left, right, and middle mouse buttons. You can also write code for mouse-keyboard combinations that use the SHIFT, CTRL, and ALT keys.

To cause a MouseDown event for a form to occur, press the mouse button in a blank area or record selector on the form. To cause a MouseDown event for a form section to occur, press the mouse button in a blank area of the form section.

The following apply to MouseDown events:

• If a mouse button is pressed while the pointer is over a form or control, that object receives all mouse events up to and including the last MouseUp event.
• If mouse buttons are pressed in succession, the object that receives the mouse event after the first press receives all mouse events until all buttons are released.

To respond to an event caused by moving the mouse, you use a MouseMove event.

Macro

You can use a MouseDown or MouseUp macro to respond whenever the user presses or releases a mouse button in a form or control. However, macros can't return the button code and determine which mouse button was pressed, so you typically use event procedures with this event.

You can't use the CancelEvent action in a MouseDown or MouseUp macro, with one exception: You can use the CancelEvent action in a MouseDown macro to cancel the event that occurs when you press the right mouse button. For example, you can cancel the display of a shortcut menu and display your own custom shortcut menu.

Example

The following example shows how you can find out which mouse button caused a MouseDown event.

To try the example, add the following event procedure to a form:

Private Sub Form_MouseDown(Button As Integer, _
         Shift As Integer, X As Single, _
         Y As Single)
    If Button = acLeftButton Then
        MsgBox "You pressed the left button."
    End If
    If Button = acRightButton Then
        MsgBox "You pressed the right button."
    End If
    If Button = acMiddleButton Then
        MsgBox "You pressed the middle button."
    End If
End Sub