Changing Text Colours/Fonts in dialog controls

[dannycat]

I'm having difficulty in changing the colour of text in dialog controls. I am utilising the dflogm module and calling the following subroutine from the modal dialog callback.

subroutine DlgSetTextColour(dlg,idc,RGBCol)

!*************************************************************
! Set Text Colour in Dialog Control
!*************************************************************

use dflogm
use dfwin

implicit none

! Arguements
type(DIALOG) :: dlg ! Dialog Data Structure
integer :: idc ! Dialog Control ID
integer :: RGBCol ! RGB(red,green,blue)

! Local variables
integer(HANDLE) :: hWndControl ! Control Window handle
integer(HANDLE) :: hDC ! Device Context
integer(DWORD) :: iret

if(dlg%hWnd.eq.0) return

hWndControl = GetDlgItem(dlg%hwnd,idc)
hDC = GetDC(hWndControl)
iret = MSFWIN$SetTextColor(hDC,RGBCol)

return
end subroutine

It has no effect. Eventually I wish to be able to modify the Font by making it bold or italic also. Is it possible to do this using the DFLOGM/IFLOGM modules modal dialog boxes or will I have to reconfigure to Modeless or rewrite in Windows API approach.

I tried changing the control (a push button) to Owner Draw but if crashed the program at the DlgInit(IDD_WW,dlg) statement.

[anthonyrichards]

See this article http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/how-to-customize-dialog-box-colors-using-subclassing/

[dannycat]

Quoting - anthonyrichards

See this article http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/how-to-customize-dialog-box-colors-using-subclassing/

Thanks Anthony, your example is really useful.

This is almost what I was looking for and I have managed to incorporate the method into one of my dialogs. However it does not seem to work with pushbutton controls.My originalidea was to showthe currentlyselected colourfor the background of the button used to select the common colour dialog box.

Is it possible to change the font style of individual controlsusing this technique?

Thanks,

Steve

[Jugoslav_Dujic]

Quoting - dannycat

Thanks Anthony, your example is really useful.

This is almost what I was looking for and I have managed to incorporate the method into one of my dialogs. However it does not seem to work with pushbutton controls.My originalidea was to showthe currentlyselected colourfor the background of the button used to select the common colour dialog box.

Is it possible to change the font style of individual controlsusing this technique?

Unfortunately, you cannot change background of foreground colors of pushbuttons. That's by [stupid] Windows design.

What you can do is to make a bitmap whose single color you change dynamically, and set it to button using BM_SETIMAGE (make sure to specify BS_BITMAP style for the button.) A simpler method is to use a static control+push button, as in the attached image.

[anthonyrichards]

The problem with push buttons is that they consist of more than one component (the shadowed edge plus the main part), so apparently a single 'background' color is not allowed by the Windows system.

Regarding fonts, once you have a handle to a font object,hFontObj, and a handle to the device context for the control, hDC, you can selectthe fontinto the device context forthe control using SelectObject(hDC, hFontObj).As to choosing and selcting fonts, I can be of no help. Try looking up 'ChooseFont' and 'Font and Text Functions' in the Help.

[dannycat]

Jugoslav,

I arrived at a similar conclusion, but I used an edit box+push button combination instead. However I tried to make the edit box read only the colour would not change. I understand from Anthony's example that edit-boxes become static if set to readonly, so I added code to deal with this, but it still does not work. It must be another Windows "design feature".

Steve

[anthonyrichards]

Quoting - dannycat

Jugoslav,

I arrived at a similar conclusion, but I used an edit box+push button combination instead. However I tried to make the edit box read only the colour would not change. I understand from Anthony's example that edit-boxes become static if set to readonly, so I added code to deal with this, but it still does not work. It must be another Windows "design feature".

Steve

In my example, I have just set the ReadOnly property of an edit box, recompiled and run itandthe read-only edit boxsent a WM_CTLCOLORSTATIC message OK as expected which I was able to intercept andwas then able to paint its background. Can you post your code to see what is happening?

[Jugoslav_Dujic]

Quoting - dannycat

I arrived at a similar conclusion, but I used an edit box+push button combination instead. However I tried to make the edit box read only the colour would not change. I understand from Anthony's example that edit-boxes become static if set to readonly, so I added code to deal with this, but it still does not work. It must be another Windows "design feature".

Huh? No, it must be something else:

[dannycat]

I must apologise, I can get the edit-box readonly colour change to work after all. I'd not changed the control typefrom WM_CTLCOLOREDIT to WM_CTLCOLORSTATIC in the definition part on my dialog code.

I'm going to try to get the font changes now. I only really want to make the text in group boxes bold.

Thanks.

[anthonyrichards]

Quoting - dannycat

I must apologise, I can get the edit-box readonly colour change to work after all. I'd not changed the control typefrom WM_CTLCOLOREDIT to WM_CTLCOLORSTATIC in the definition part on my dialog code.

I'm going to try to get the font changes now. I only really want to make the text in group boxes bold.

Thanks.

Here is how to create and use a 10 point, bold italic Verdana font

TYPE(T_LOGFONT):: LF
INTEGER::i, hFont


LF=T_LOGFONT(-10,0,0,0,FW_BOLD, 1_1,0_1,0_1,0_1, 0_1,0_1,0_1,0_1,"Verdana"C) !10-pointVerdana font
hFont = CreateFontIndirect(LF)

To set the font for a control, you can use

i = SendMessage(GetDlgItem(Dlg%hWnd,IDC_YOURCONTROL), WM_SETFONT, hFont, 0)

I have tried this and find the text output using this bold font,is not as black as when using the default black font.
I have no idea why.

[Jugoslav_Dujic]

Quoting - anthonyrichards

Here is how to create and use a 10 point, bold italic Verdana font

You would better just bold the original system font. Semi-pseudo code follows, I don't have time to look at exact prototypes:

[cpp]type(T_LOGFONT) LF
hFont = SendDlgItemMessage(IDC_GROUP, WM_GETFONT)
!(Alternatively, use GetStockObject(DEFAULT_GUI_FONT))
iret = GetObject(hFont, LOC(LF))
LF%lfWeight = FW_BOLD
hFont2 = CreateFontIndirect(LF)
iret = SendDlgItemMessage(IDC_GROUP, WM_SETFONT, hFont2)

[/cpp]

Don't forget to destroy hFont2 after you're done with the dialog. Failure to do so creates a (small though) GDI memory leak.

[anthonyrichards]

Re: the text contrast being less when in a read-only edit box, I think this is because the box is given a greyed-out look when selected as read-only , so the contrast between background and text will always be less whatever text boldness is selected.