Button controls that disappear behind Picture controls

[acar]

This may be a VS issue but I'd thought I raise it here to see if anyone in the community knows a way round it. I want to create a dialog that is filled with a picture and has button controls on top. I've created a picture control for my dialog and then created some buttons. However when I move the buttons over the picture control they either disappear or are visible but can't then be selected in the resource editor. I guess what I need is the functionality to tell the editor to put the picture control behind all other controls. Any views?

[John_B__Walter]

In the resource editor, you should be able to just "tab" through the various items in the dialog until you get to the one you're interested in, even if it's behind another item.

also, you can reorder the tab sequence of items in the dialog with Ctrl" D

[acar]

Thanks John, yes I can tab through the items as you say. Unfortunately the buttons don't display when I run the application so I'm guessing that what I want to do is not possible. I've got round this by making sure the background of my picture is the same grey as the dialog and then by placing the buttons to the side of the picture the final results looks like what I intended to do, i.e. a picture with buttons on top.

[John_B__Walter]

Quoting acar

Thanks John, yes I can tab through the items as you say. Unfortunately the buttons don't display when I run the application so I'm guessing that what I want to do is not possible. I've got round this by making sure the background of my picture is the same grey as the dialog and then by placing the buttons to the side of the picture the final results looks like what I intended to do, i.e. a picture with buttons on top.

Have you tried setting the picture/image to be "Transparent" (last property under "Appearance")?

[anthonyrichards · Accepted solution]

This thread may be of some help:

http://software.intel.com/en-us/forums/showthread.php?t=39115

[acar]

Okay thanks to both John and Anthony. The solution I used was based on tab order. It seems if I make the picture the first in the tab list then the desired result is seen in my application. It is a little annoying though that in the resource editor even with this order, once the buttons have been moved over the picture you can't get hold of them again with the mouse.

[Jugoslav_Dujic]

Quoting acar

It is a little annoying though that in the resource editor even with this order, once the buttons have been moved over the picture you can't get hold of them again with the mouse.

Hint #1: Ctrl+Click starts the tab order setting from the selected control onwards (not from 1)

Hint #2: A much less error-prone method is to open the .rc file in text mode, and adjust the order of controls in the dialog by cutting & pasting appropriate lines.

[acar]

Seems a good idea to work on the text file. I shall look into this next time I have a similar problem. Thanks.