I want to design a screen for a very simple machine (a spring winder).  There are only a few relevent variables, like wire diameter, spring inner diameter, spring length and a few others. 

I want the user to have two ways to enter the data:

• Typing values into appropriate boxes
• Selecting a predefined set of values from a list.

Text boxes and dropdown lists seem like the natural way to do this, but I can't tell from the documentation whether it's possible to add these features to the screen or not.  kc5qoc's code in the "File selection dialog" thread  suggests that it may be possible, but I'll freely confess that I didn't understand a lot of it.

 I'm slightly familiar with VBA from writing Excel macros and I have a smattering of other programming experience, and I like trying to figure stuff like this out, but I would rather not waste my time running down a blind alley.

Possibly reading this thread might give you some pointers. http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php?topic=50.msg153#msg153
Near the end of the thread there is a some stuff to download and examine. Sorry I cant help you any more than this.

download the code for the winder and you will be able to edit the code to make it work