topic colored buttons in Software Archive

colored buttons

Intel_C_Intel — Wed, 28 Nov 2001 17:40:41 GMT

Hi,
I am trying to get 'colored' buttons according to the
code below.

1) I create a 'main' window hWnd

2) I create a number of buttons ButtonWnd(i) to move
around hWnd to different locations depending on
some calculated results

my problem is that I would like to set different colors
to the buttons instead of the gray default one.

I have tried to respond to the WM_CTLCOLORBTN message
without success.

I do not have any text on the buttons, I just use them
as push-button-like check boxes.

How do I proceed to get colored buttons?

/bjorn

a stripped down code snippet follows:

 
... 
!main windows 
   iflag=IOR(WS_CLIPCHILDREN, & 
         IOR(WS_OVERLAPPEDWINDOW,WS_SIZEBOX)) 
   hWnd = CreateWindowEx(0,           &    
                 lpszClassName,       & 
                 szCosTitle,          & 
                 int(iflag),          & 
                 0,                   & 
                 0,                   & 
                 cxWnd,               & 
                 cyWnd,               & 
                 NULL,                & 
                 hmenu,               & 
                 hInstance,           & 
                 NULL                 & 
                 ) 
... 
   iflag = IOR(BS_AUTOCHECKBOX, IOR(BS_PUSHLIKE, & 
           IOR(WS_VISIBLE, WS_CHILD))) 
   do i=1,n 
!buttons 
   ButtonhWnd(i) = CreateWindowEx(0,     & 
                        "BUTTON"C,       & 
                        ""C,             & 
                        iflag,           & 
                        100,             & 
                        100,             & 
                        10,              & 
                        10,              & 
                        hWnd,            & 
                        NULL,            & 
                        hInstance,       & 
                        0                & 
                        ) 
    enddo 
 
integer(4) function & 
           MainWndProc( hWnd, mesg, wParam, lParam ) 
... 
  select case ( mesg ) 
      case (WM_CREATE) 
         hBluebrush = CreateSolidBrush( RGB(0,0,255) ) 
      case (WM_CTLCOLORBTN) 
         hdcButton  = wParam; 
         hwndButton = lParam;  
         i = SelectObject( hdcButton, hBluebrush ) 
         i = SetBkColor(  hdcButton, RGB(0,0,255) ) 
         MainWndProc = hBluebrush !return blue brush 
         return 
      case (WM_DESTROY) 
        bret = DeleteObject( hBluebrush ) 
        call PostQuitMessage( 0 ) 
      case DEFAULT 
        MainWndProc =  & 
        DefWindowProc( hWnd, mesg, wParam, lParam ) 
        return 
   end select 
   MainWndProc = 0 
   return 
end function MainWndProc

Re: colored buttons

Jugoslav_Dujic — Thu, 29 Nov 2001 19:14:22 GMT

The best you can get is a bitmap or icon attached to the button with BS_BITMAP or BS_ICON style (see recent thread ). The feature you discovered is by design. Remarks on WM_CTLCOLORBTN in the help aren't very clear, though.
A more complicated alternative would be to use owner-draw buttons (BS_OWNERDRAW) but that would require that you do all drawing by yourself
when processing WM_DRAWITEM; (but DrawFrameControl(DFC_BUTTON, DFC_BUTTONPUSH,...) might be very helpful with that).

HTH
Jugoslav

Re: colored buttons

pcurtis — Sun, 02 Dec 2001 05:47:00 GMT

Documentation on WM_CTLCOLORBTN is very spotty, and would lead one to believe that this message works as described. But it doesn't; a hunt through the various archives and books turns up a comment from Petzold in his Win95 book (still valuable) that WM_CTLCOLORBTN only works with owner-draw buttons, which is of course a nonsensical and totally useless situation. Go figure. As Jugoslav has noted, making buttons with bitmaps does work, and is very easy.

Re: colored buttons

Intel_C_Intel — Mon, 03 Dec 2001 23:17:30 GMT

thanks folks!
ICONS works OK

regs
/Bjrn