I am developing an MFC dialog based application and when I maximize the dialog, empty space is added to "right and bottom" of controls. This is because controls have default anchoring position set to TOP-LEFT.
I want the empty space to be added to "left and bottom" of controls means all the controls present in dialog need to be at same distance from right and top of dialog. Also, I do not want to expand the size of control.
So, Is there any way to change the default anchoring of controls to TOP-RIGHT?
PS : There are so many controls on dialog and I do not want to change the property of each one. A common method/property for all is required.
Thanks in advance!
Related
I my application, I have added a dropdown box to the standard windows file open dialog. This works fine, but I would like to position this drop box exactly below the file name and file mask edit controls, and its label exactly below the labels for these controls.
How can I get the positions of these controls and the corresponding labels (it depends on the Windows version and maybe even on theming, so using the constants that make the dialog look fine on my computer won't do)?
On Vista+, you should be using the IFileDialog, IFileOpenDialog and IFileDialogCustomize interfaces:
Common Item Dialog
Customizing the Dialog
You can use the IFileDialogCustomize::AddText() and IFileDialogCustomize::AddComboBox() methods to add a drop-down list and its label to the dialog, and if needed use the IFileDialogControlEvents::OnItemSelected event to react to the user selecting items in your drop-down list.
However, you cannot decide where custom controls are displayed when customizing this dialog. UI layout is controlled by the dialog itself:
The Common Item Dialog implementation found in Windows Vista provides several advantages over the implementation provided in earlier versions:
...
•Enables simple customization of the dialog, such as setting the label on the OK button, without requiring a hook procedure.
•Supports more extensive customization of the dialog by the addition of a set of data-driven controls that operate without a Win32 dialog template. This customization scheme frees the calling process from UI layout. Since any changes to the dialog design continue to use this data model, the dialog implementation is not tied to the specific current version of the dialog.
...
The only layout access it provides is the order in which you add your custom controls, and any visual grouping. So, you could use IFileDialogCustomize::StartVisualGroup() to create a new group, then call AddText() and AddComboBox() (in that order) to add those controls to the group, and then finally call IFileDialogCustomize::EndVisualGroup().
On the other hand, when using GetOpenFileName() instead, there are some different options for customizing that dialog, and they allow you much finer grain control over the dialog's layout:
Customizing Common Dialog Boxes
Open and Save As Dialog Box Customization
The preferred option is to create a custom dialog box template and specify it in the OPENFILENAME structure. Within the template, you can have whatever controls and layout you want, and then the template can be inserted as a child of a standard Explorer-style dialog, or as a replacement for a standard Old-style dialog. MSDN documents how to custom-position a template within an Explorer-style dialog:
Explorer-Style Custom Templates
To make room for the new controls, the system expands the default dialog box by the width and height of the custom dialog box. By default, all controls from the custom dialog box are positioned below the controls in the default dialog box. However, you can override this default positioning by including a static text control in your custom dialog box template and assigning it the control identifier value of stc32. (This value is defined in the Dlgs.h header file.) In this case, the system uses the control as the point of reference for determining where to position the new controls. All new controls above and to the left of the stc32 control are positioned the same amount above and to the left of the controls in the default dialog box. New controls below and to the right of the stc32 control are positioned below and to the right of the default controls. In general, each new control is positioned so that it has the same position relative to the default controls as it had to the stc32 control. To make room for these new controls, the system adds space to the left, right, bottom, and top of the default dialog box as needed.
The alternative, without using a custom template, is to obtain the dialog's own HWND directly (which can be gotten inside a hook function assigned to the OPENFILENAME::lpfnHook field) and then you have full access to do whatever you want with the dialog. Microsoft assigned fixed control IDs to the standard controls of an Explorer-style dialog (so you must specify the OFN_EXPLORER flag for this approach to work), and those IDs are consistent across Windows versions. Those IDs are meant to be used with the CDM_SETCONTROLTEXT and CDM_HIDECONTROL messages, but they can also be used with GetDlgItem() to get the HWND of certain dialog controls, in this case the cmb13, edt1 and stc3 controls:
cmb13
Drop-down combo box that displays the name of the current file, allows the user to type the name of a file to open, and select a file that has been opened or saved recently. This is for earlier Explorer-compatible applications without hook or dialog template. Compare with edt1.
edt1
Edit control that displays the name of the current file, or allows the user to type the name of the file to open. Compare with cmb13.
stc3
Label for the cmb13 combo box and the edt1 edit control
Once you have those HWNDs, you can manually query their current positions and sizes, add your custom drop-down list underneath them as needed, and resize the dialog's HWND to accommodate your drop-down list.
Whether you use a template or direct HWND manipulation, you would need to use a dialog hook function to process messages from your drop-down list as needed, such as the CBN_SELCHANGE notification.
I am very new beginner with VB6 and I hope I explain the things right
I want to create form with 2 buttons (the buttons are located on the top form position )
So each button will switch to other form/window/frame
For example
The first button will show window 1 (there I can set only parameters)
The second button will show window 2 (there I can set only IP address)
Please advice if we can do that by VB6 ?
And if yes how to do that ( step by step )
Remark - Similar example but with multiple windows in the same form is the system properties ( right click on my computer and properties ) , the we can see each button will view different window
Create a form with 2 buttons, Command1 and Command2.
On this form, create 2 frames, Frame1 and Frame2. hide Frame2 and make sure to line up both framesso that they are of the same size and located right on top of each other (Top, Left, Width and Height properties must be the same)
Now put this code in:
Private Sub Command1_Click()
Frame1.Visible = True
Frame2.Visible = False
End Sub
Private Sub Command2_Click()
Frame1.Visible = False
Frame2.Visible = True
End Sub
Now each the first button shows the first frame while hiding the 2nd. The second button hides the first frame and shows the seconds. I think this is the simplest way to implement your task.
PS: don't forget to name your objects properly, it's not a good idea to have default names like Command1 or Frame2 - should be more descriptive than that.
It sounds like you are asking about the tabbed dialog control. To use a tabbed dialog control in VB6:
Click Project -> Components
Scroll down to "Microsoft Tabbed Dialog Control 6.0" and select it.
Click the Apply button.
You should notice a new control in the component tool box. If you do not see the toolbox, click View -> ToolBox. This is the same area of the IDE where you first click to add a button to a form. The tabbed dialog control looks like the top tab of several file folders. When you hover your mouse over the control in the toolbox, you will see a tool tip text of "SSTab". Click this control and then draw a rectangle on your form.
By default, this will add a tabbed dialog control with 3 tabs, but you can change this in the properties window. You can now create any control on top of a tab of the tabbed dialog control and interact with the control exactly the same way you would if the control was placed on the form itself.
What you want is called an MDI Form. It's a form that contains other forms.
You can find a full tutorial on them here, but here's the gist of what you want to do:
Set the "MDIChild" property of all your subforms you want to use to True. Disable their minimize, maximize, and resize functions as well.
Create an MDIForm. Disable its AutoShowChildren property.
Add a toolbar to the MDIForm. Add buttons to the toolbar corresponding to the forms you'll be switching between.
Implement each button's click event, to create child form as expected (or switch to an existing one).
Does anyone know why Labels and Frames (and possibly other controls) have a TabIndex property in VB6? Is there some use for it; some feature of GUI programming I ought to be incorporating in my applications (that I am blissfully unaware of)?
To confirm what Cody said in the comments. The VB6 manual entry for TabIndex says:
Controls that can't receive the focus (Frame and Label controls) remain in the tab order but are skipped during tabbing.
but
If you press the access key for a Frame or Label control, the focus moves to the next control in the tab order that can receive the focus.
TabIndex is the property used to determine the sequence of focused controls when user presses TAB key.
If control with TabIndex=5 is focused and user presses TAB, control with TabIndex=6 will take focus.
Is there a method such that a user can click on the form itself, and in doing so remove focus from whatever object (textbox, combobox, etc) currently has it? Basically, can focus be uniformly removed from everything at once?
Setting the focus to the form itself does not work.
I thought about doing the old "hide a placeholder button behind another object" trick, but I'm really not a fan of that.
Thanks!
In VB6 a PictureBox can get focus, even if it does not contain any control.
In your case you can put a PictureBox with TabStop false, BorderStyle set to 0, TabIndex set to 0 behind every other control but not containing any focusable control and stretch it to ScaleWidth by ScaleHeight at run-time.
You have to put the labels and any windowless control in this background PictureBox too.
This way when the user clicks "on the form" the focus will "go away". With "no focus" Tab key will focus first control (the one with TabIndex set to 1).
When a form is active, something generally HAS to have focus. It sounds like you're just wanting to not "show" that a particular control has focus.
If that's the case, it's going to depend on the controls. Some have properties that control whether or not the specific control "indicates" its focus in some way.
But the built in Windows controls will always show their focus state unless you subclass them
Given this problem. I'd probably put a button on the form , then move it offscreen when the form loads. Make sure it's not a tab stop, but then when you want to hide focus, set focus specifically to the button, make sure the button is STILL in the tab order, even though it's not a tab stop, so the user can press tab while on the button and end up somewhere logical.
Don't have VB handy, but could you simply remove TabStop?
for x = 1 to me.Controls.count
me.Controls(x).TabStop = 0
next
I have a picturebox and a control on a form.
Private Sub cmdButton_Click
PictureBox.setFocus
Exit sub
End sub
The control doesn't change its appearance, nor does the picturebox.
Of course you'll need to add an If-Then clause if you want the control to respond normally sometimes.
How do I prevent the user from resizing form dialogues in VB6? The dialogues are small and simple and resizing them serves no purpose, so I'd prefer to prevent it than write code to handle it.
You can set the BorderStyle of the form to either "Fixed Single" (vbFixedSingle) or "Fixed Dialog" (vbFixedDouble) at design-time. Either of these will prevent the user from resizing the form.
Fixed Single provides a Control-menu box, title bar, Maximize
button, and Minimize button. The form
will still be resizable using the
Maximize and Minimize buttons, but not
by dragging the edges of the window.
Fixed Dialog provides a Control-menu box and title bar, but
eliminates the Maximize and Minimize
buttons. It is therefore not resizable
at all. (Also note that a form that
contains a menu cannot be displayed as
a Fixed Dialog and is automatically
changed to the Fixed Single border
style.)
See also the relevant MSDN entry: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa245047(VS.60).aspx
Select as BorderStyle "Fixed Single"
Change the BorderStyle. Toolbox, Fixed dialog or property window should do it I think.
You can set the BorderStyle of the form to "Fixed Single" and If you want to have a minimizable form , set MinButton property to "True".
form border options available in vb6 are
me.BorderStyle = 0 ' – None
me.Appearance = 0 '– Flat
me.BorderStyle = 1 '– Fixed Single
me. Appearance = 1 '– 3D
me.BorderStyle = 1 '– Fixed Single