On Windows, once a Static control has been painted (it is already shown), how can we retrieve its text color ?
I have tried with GetTextColor(), GetDCPenColor() but they don't work.
thanks
GetSysColor(COLOR_BTNTEXT) or GetThemeColor if you are using Visual Styles. A subclassed control might change the default by handling WM_CTLCOLORSTATIC.
Related
So for the simple feat of wanting to put an icon on the right side of button text instead of the left resulted in having to use owner draw buttons (but someone here said Custom Draw is actually available if using visual themes). Okay, fine, but now I'm finding you can't really duplicate what Windows standard buttons do when it's not in owner draw mode.
For a normal enabled button I can get the look correct by checking if visual styles are available or not and then using either the DrawThemeBackground() / DrawThemeText() or DrawFrameControl() / DrawText(). However the hot key underline character is shown even when alt key is not pressed, the default buttons don't show it until alt pressed.
For a disabled button, I can't duplicate the disabled look of the icon placed on the button. I tried DrawState() over DrawIconEx() but that looks like the old Windows 3.1 type grey graphic not the visual style dimmed graphic. I see there is a DrawThemeIcon() for an image list, I guess I could try that (I'd have to test non visual style mode to see if DrawState() matches when not using visual styles).
Also, as you hover over the button, the state doesn't change, I understand that if using owner draw, that doesn't occur, maybe it would still work with Custom Draw?
So the two main questions are:
1 - Is there something built-in to the button / owner draw to handle the underlined hotkey only when alt was pressed?
Update to Question 1: I found DT_HIDEPREFIX in DrawText() and using Custom Draw there is the CDIS_SHOWKEYBOARDCUES flag. However with Owner Draw I'm not sure if there is a flag someplace?
2 - How do you draw an icon for a button that is disabled to match what default buttons do?
TIA!!
For shortcut underline you can use WM_QUERYUISTATE to ask if it should be hidden or visible
DWORD draw_text_flags = ...;
if ( SendMessage( control_hwnd, WM_QUERYUISTATE, 0, 0 ) & UISF_HIDEACCEL ) != 0 )
{
// hide prefix
draw_text_flags |= DT_HIDEPREFIX;
}
// some combination of PBS_DEFAULTED, PBS_DISABLED, PBS_HOT, PBS_NORMAL, PBS_PRESSED;
int state = ...;
DrawThemeText( theme, hdc, BP_PUSHBUTTON, state, text, text_len, draw_text_flags, 0, rect );
Answer to Q2: If you create an HIMAGELIST using ILC_COLOR32 | ILC_MASK, and use ILD_NORMAL|ILD_BLEND25 on ImageList_Draw() it gives the same look as windows default buttons for a disabled button.
Based on responses from #Remy-Lebeau and #Daniel-Sęk and reviewing various projects on CodeProject, I create an easy to use class to handle this. It can be found at CodeProject. Thanks Guys.
I am modifying my windows desktop VCL project (windows) style to custom style "Light".
I am having trouble to modify an owner drawn TColorButton Delphi component (
http://delphi.about.com/od/vclwriteenhance/l/aa061104a.htm ) to "Light" custom style.
When I set my project style to custom style "Light", TColorButton acts like a normal TButton (colour can't be modify) with Light style. I understood after gone through other questions on this site that, I should unset style elements client (i.e StyleElemets.seClient := false) to change back ground colour. But, it resets the style of delphi component TColorButton to standard windows style.
Could you please suggest me, how to overcome above issue ?
VCL Light custom style has a different back ground colour when mouse over/onclick event on the button. Is it possible to get hex value of colour?
Thanks in advance for any help you are able to provide.
We are all familiar with text highlighting. You hover over any "text" in any application on your Windows OS, your cursor changes into an I-Beam, and you can click and drag across the text to Highlight it. This highlighted text can be copied to the clipboard for later use.
Some applications modify the default highlighting behavior by changing color, opacity, or even shape. Some applications allow for column selection (e.g. Visual Studio "alt-click-drag" creates box like highlighting)
I have scoured the depths of the internet, but I can't seem to find a solid source of information that would explain how one would modify the behavior of text highlighting.
How would I implement column/block text selection, and modifying the appearance of the highlighted text in a compiled application.
Since applications can do this in various custom ways, there is no single solution to change how all of them style text selections.
Many will rely on the current color scheme (using GetSysColor) to determine the highlight colors. So you could modify the scheme and maybe affect the colors used for many applications.
To do this programmatically, you would use SetSysColors to change the COLOR_HIGHLIGHT and COLOR_HIGHLIGHTTEXT values.
Other applications might rely on the current theme (using GetThemeColor). To affect those you'd have to select a different theme that has the colors (and perhaps other styling choices) that you want.
A lot of apps use their own hard-coded color schemes, so you won't be able to programmatically at all.
I'm not sure what you mean with the web application part of your question. A web application is some HTML, JS and CSS that make the browser interact with your system. Any custom selection (coloring) logic that the web application provides, has to be implemented by the browser.
Also you have to realize that "(text) selection" is an rather virtual principle. An application can just render a colored shape (like a blue rectangle) and copy something to the clipboard when it receives a WM_COPY message.
Windows provides in basic substring selection functionality for (rich) edit controls (i.e. start and end position), but for something custom like column selection, custom code is required.
Read more about this in Making a rectangular selection in a RichTextBox with Alt-Left-Mouse sweep?.
I want to change text color and background color for my EDIT CONTROL, STATIC CONTROL and BUTTON CONTROL in MFC application. The control is in a CDialogEx dialogue .
I try to add the OnCtlColor (with wizard in visual studio, on the WM_CTLCOLR message) but I can't set the color of may static control and button control.
I put also a break point in the OnCtlColor function (in the IF construct), but I don't receive anything.
I also tried to use the SetTextColor function retrieving the handle of the control from GetDlgItem, but I can't change the color as I want.
Pleas help me.
I can assert that I tried to use in OnCtlColor in a CDialog and it worked for the static and for the edit controls.
All you have to do is:
For changing background color, you need to create a brush that still exists outside that function and return its HBRUSH with
return (HBRUSH) m_brush.GetSafeHandle();
So you have to make a variable (m_brush in this code) that is member or a static (I recommend the first), and in the dialog initialization you have to create the brush you want.
I thought maybe some controls will not work with this, and for those I also did
pDC->SetBkColor(RGB(0,0,255));
But seems to do nothing; it is in the code for safety.
For changing the text color,I did
pDC->SetTextColor(RGB(255,0,0));
These experiences worked well for edits and statics, but did not work at all for groupboxes!
Groupboxes are a strange entity in MFC, some kind of a platyplus: they are a CButton with the BS_GROUPBOX, but in this function, its nCtlColor is CTLCOLOR_STATIC instead of CTLCOLOR_BTN! I did this for them
UINT nStyle = (UINT)(pWnd->GetStyle() & 0x0F);
if(nStyle == BS_GROUPBOX)
{
return (HBRUSH) m_brush2.GetSafeHandle();
}
and what got painted was the little rectangle behind the groupbox title!
I could not get the text colour of groupboxes changed!
If you have groupboxes and it is really important to change their titles' text color, you can get the one from http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/29016/XGroupBox-an-MFC-groupbox-control-to-display-text and get its essential code parts: to be derived from CStatic, the OnPaint() and DrawItem() methods. Do not forget also the ON_WM_PAINT() on the message map. I don't know if the OnEraseBkgnd() and its is ON_WM_ERASEBKGND() message mapping are so essential.
It is also needed to change them to be Static text controls in the resources, declare a XGroupBox variable and do a DDX_Control of it.
I tested it and it really works.
For buttons, with CButtons it did not work. But, for each button, I simply declared a CMFCButton variable in the class and did a DDX_Control of each one. After, I had two choices:
Set its m_bTransparent property to TRUE in the form constructor (search this variable on afxbutton.cpp file for reference) for the ones I wanted to have the same color as the form (I also painted the form; in my case I was implementing themes on an application)
Set the Background color with SetFaceColor() and set the Text Color with SetTextColor() in form initialization.
When the CMFCButton does not have these things set, it got its color from theme blending of the currently selected CMFCVisualManager.
Note: I also replaced my CSpinButton entities with CMFCSpinButon ones, because I wanted colors from the selected theme.
In the OnCtlColor, the nCtlColor variable is important because it will allow you to personalize different colors to different types, without testing dynamic_cast success or failure for every control.
Do not forget to add ON_WM_CTLCOLOR() to your message map.
UPDATE 1:
After following the advice of the accepted answer on http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/vstudio/en-US/53f47162-078a-418f-8067-ee61a81ceeac/checkbox-transparent-color-not-working-in-vs2008?forum=vcgeneral , I did my own Groupbox class, and now it is like:
class CMyGroupBox: public CButton
{
protected:
virtual void PreSubclassWindow()
{
SetWindowTheme(*this, _T(""), _T(""));
#pragma comment(lib, "UxTheme.lib")
}
};
I just declared one of this, and did DDX_Control with its respective control ID, and now I can see the text in the color I supplied to SetTextColor. If you return a HBRUSH for this control, what gets painted is a non-filled rectangle drawn around the groupbox's title.
UPDATE 2: I just generalized the CMyGroupBox to be CMyButton, for using its PreSubClassWindow method not only in groupboxes, but also in checkboxes and buttons. In checkboxes it works well, in buttons, I am not so satisfied with the results.
UPDATE 3: I was trying to remove some weird effect on the rendering of the text and I just commented the pDC->SetBkColor(RGB(0,0,255)); line; the result was an ugly while rectangle behind the text :( . Then I replaced it with pDC->SetBkMode(TRANSPARENT); and I also see tht weird effect :(
UPDATE 4: In order to avoid to have to declare all my checkboxes, groupboxes and buttons as the class that contains the PreSubClassWindow method, I researched and discovered that it is not needed to do it. The code
SetThemeAppProperties(0);
#pragma comment(lib, "UxTheme.lib")
AfxGetMainWnd()->SendMessage(WM_THEMECHANGED, 0U, 0L);
disables theming for all controls at the whole application level.
Say, I have an Image control (which seems to be a window-less control) and I want to make sure that it is on top of a TextBox. No matter what I do, the Image control will not appear on top of the Text box.
Is there a way?
P.S. I know I can use a PictureBox, but it does not support transparency, thus I must have the Image control.
There is no way to place an image control over a normal textbox as they are drawn onto the form itself so will always be below any other windowed components.
If you have VB6 installation media there are drawn (windowless) versions of controls including a TextBox you can use that will (probably) do what you want; http://support.microsoft.com/kb/184687
A custom usercontrol of some kind if probably better .. what is it exactly you want to overlay the textbox with?
The Image Control is considered a graphical control, like shapes, so it is always inferior to text controls. If you really want a transparent image, you can use a Microsoft 2.0 Form instead(only if you have it). Images there can be on top of textboxes, and you can make it transparent by setting the Backstyle to Transparent(0).
Completely different approach to my other answer (hence the seperate Answer), but you can set AutRedraw and ClipControls on your Form to false and it will allow the Image control to render on the same layer as a windowed control. You can get some flakey redrawing in some cases but for a quick solution you could try it.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa733621(v=vs.60)
I've created a tranparent overlay control to add a kind of annotation layer on top of a VB6 app. I'll attempt to describe it from memory, and if that doesn't provide enough information then you can post back and I'll try to dig up the code.
First, add a new USerControl to you application. Give it a name like ImageEx, PictureEx, or TransparntImage. There are several properties that you will need to use. Ensure the control is Windowed, so it can sit on top of other windowed controls. Locate the MaskColor property and set it to Cyan (or whatever color you elect to use to indicate a tranparent area. There might be an addition property enable the masking behavior, just browse the properties. Set the control background color to that of the MaskColor. At this point you have an invisible control. In my control I painted on top of the surface for annotations, but you can PaintPicture or maybe even set the image property for a really simple approach.
Of course, to make this a re-usable control, you will want to code in your own properties that allow the MaskColor and image, etc to be set so that you can the drop one of these on any form you want.
Some links:
MaskColor Property
MackPicture Property
1) Remove all your textboxes , labels and ... (But memorize their name and location in the form)
2) Go to (project > components) and mark the (Microsoft Forms 2.0 Object Library) then click ok
3) Now you can see new controls under your default controls in your toolbox...
4) Use its textbox and label controls instead of the default controls
5) Right click on your Image Control then click (Bring To Front)