Listbox refresh problem -- mysterious phantom highlighting

I'm using Excel2003 VBA, and I have a single-select listbox which, for example, I populate with 4 items:
listbox1.additem "ITEM 1"
listbox1.additem "ITEM 2"
listbox1.additem "ITEM 3"
listbox1.additem "ITEM 4"

The listbox1_click event subroutine shows:
if listbox1 = "ITEM 3" then
DISPLAY2
endif

The DISPLAY2 routine has
listbox1.clear
listbox1.listindex = -1 (might be redundant, I think, since I cleared it?)
listbox1.additem "NEW ITEM 1"
listbox1.additem "NEW ITEM 2"
listbox1.additem "NEW ITEM 3"
listbox1.additem "NEW ITEM 4"

For some reason, when I select ITEM 3 in the first display, and the second display comes up with the new 4 items, it has NEW ITEM 3 highlighted. I've tried putting the listbox1.listindex = -1 or listbox1.listindex = null below the additem entries, and I've tried changing the listbox1.visible = false before populating it, and listbox1.visible = true after populating it (thinking that a repaint might fix this), but I cannot get it to display the NEW ITEM screen with nothing highlighted. Can you see what I'm doing wrong, or a workaround to this? My best workaround I could think of was to create a listbox2 for the NEW ITEM list, and make the original listbox invisible and the new one visible after I switch, but I don't see why I can't re-use the same listbox, other than this highlighting problem. (It seems to me that it may be detecting a mouse event when it goes to DISPLAY2, and thereby highlighting the area where my mouse is still hovering, but if that's it, I can't think of a way to bypass this situation.) I've also utilized a text box to display the current LISTINDEX value, and strangely, when the macro displays the NEW ITEM list, and it highlights the 3rd item, the listindex displays properly as "-1", although based on what it's highlighting, it should be showing "2".

Thanks!

Full Example:

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Hello RexKatWa,

This is happens by design. When the cursor is placed inside the ListBox and the Click event fires, it determines which row the cursor is on and highlights it.

Hello RexKatWa,

I don't have time to fully explain how controls and their events operate to you, but I do know what I am talking about. If you shift the focus away from the ListBox, as you did when displaying the message box, it will not highlight the item in the ListBox.

It is possible to alter the behaviour of a control on a UserForm using SubClassing, but this technique is very advanced and requires extensive use of the Windows API. I am not really sure what effect you want to accomplish. However, it will most likely involve the use of other control.

Is there a reason for reusing the same listbox? It doesn't appear to give the user much option to change their mind if the click the wrong thing by mistake.

Hello RexKatWa,

Add this event code to your UserForm and it work the way you want.

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Hello RexKatWa,

The reason the delay works is that Windows allows a maximum 20 milliseconds for a thread to complete and return control back to the message pump. Since the Application, in this case the UserForm, is responsible for handling the ListBox messages, it reports back that the ListBox has not responded. The line will be highlighted only if a message is received in time.