How to change the Forecolor of Command Button?

Hi Gurus,


I have a simple question!. How to change the ForeColor of a command button?


VB's 'Properties' window does not show 'ForeColor' for a command button.

It allows 'BackColor' to be changed and takes effect when 'Style' is set to 1.

What if i want to set 'ForeColor'?


But VB allows 'ForeColor' setting for Check Box & Option Button.

Right now i am faking using check box , with Style =1, it looks like a CommandButton and the first line in the Click event handler, would be to

set the value back to zero, to avoid 'pushed' look.


I dont want to use Sheredian controls or some such ActiveX controls just for the sake of color!, (unless unavoidable)


Do i need to use 'MaskColor' setting, to achieve the effect?

Interestingly, MSDN ( atleast the copy that i have, slightly old one, '98)

says 'ForeColor' property is available for command button also!


Can you please give me some hints?


Ravi Kiran

Hi


There's no easy way to do this in VB. When programming 'true' windows (ie. c/c++/delphi etc), you can create the Button Control with owner-drawn style which allows you to paint the command button in whatever way you want.


There is an excellent article at http://vbaccelerator.com that shows how to do this in VB with subclassing. You can get to the link from the codeguru site :


http://www.codeguru.com/vb/links/jump.cgi?ID=1678


Regards


Chris Eastwood


Codeguru - the website for developers

http://www.codeguru.com/vb




Drawing Buttons, Option Boxes and Check Boxes In Your Own Style

Hi


Yes you can do this in VB! (There's no need to subclass the button for this)


Use the SetTextColor API.


This is the declaration:

Private Declare Function SetTextColor Lib "gdi32" (ByVal hDC As Long, ByVal crColor As Long) As Long


And this is call itself:

Call SetTextColor(MyCommand1.hDC, [a long value containing the color, for instance vbBlack])

hmm ok vbBlack isn't a great example.. LOL vbRed will look fine.


Hope (I'm sure :-) this helps


Crazy D

Hi


I couldn't get that to work - is this VB5/6 ?


You also need to get the Device Context from the command button (if using VB5 - don't know about VB6), ie.


Private Declare Function GetDC Lib "user32" (ByVal hwnd As Long) As Long


Dim lDC As Long


lDC = GetDC(Command1.hwnd)


Ideas ?


Chris Eastwood

CodeGuru - the website for developers

http://www.codeguru.com/vb

Hi,


I too tried, and it doesn't work, atleast in VB 5.0


I tried with & w/o style set to 1; with & w/o Refresh, i.e call command1.Refresh after SetTextColor. Even call TextOut after setting color

all possibilities. But nothing works the way it is supposed to!


Ravi

Try the original link :


http://www.codeguru.com/vb/links/jump.cgi?ID=1678


The subclassing is very easy with Steve's subclassing DLL (or you can just compile the source of the DLL into your own app).


Regards


Chris Eastwood


Codeguru - the website for developers

http://www.codeguru.com/vb

Hi,


Ys. I have downloaded and am trying. It seems to require X-Times dll sSubtimer dll or something. I am on it right now..


Ravi