Colored ActiveX Toolbar

[Hochst]

Hello,

since hours i try to change the backgound color of a AxctiveX Toolbar. No Channce...
Is it possible? If it is, do you know how i can do this. Here

http://www.freevbcode.com/ShowCode.asp?ID=3376

i found a ProgressBar example but it dont helped me. Please can you help me?

Thank you very much!
Hochst

 

[Andrzejek]

You can create your own Progress Bar: just place a frame and a label inside the frame. And play with the BackColor, Height, and Width of your label. It is easy, and you have a full control over any color you want: frame’s color as a BackColor, and label’s BackColor as a color of your own Progress Bar.

Have fun.

---- Andy

A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops. On my desk, I have a work station.

 

[Hochst]

Hey Andrzejek,

Thank you for you fast reply. I know you are right and your way is actually better than ActvieX.
I realy dont need that ActiveX stuff, but i cant accept that i can't figure it out. I find it quite
hard to handle these components. There are less examples and the ducumentation is a **** of. I
cant find the right approach with this components. Where can i find the Infomration i need?
Buy expenisive books from Microdump Press?

Thank you
Hochst

 

[strongm]

The whole point of an ActiveX control is that is a black box whose inner workings you do not need to worry about. And that can be great, and save you a lot of time and effort The downside is that an ActiveX control only exposes methods and properties the designer thought useful and/or appropriate. And if they decided not to expose the background colour as a property then you are out of (direct) luck.

Thing is the Active controls are often made up of standard Windows controls, which provides us with a backdoor or hack for achieving what you want. Several problems, though. Firstly you need to be able to identify the Windows control (or controls) whose background property you want to change, and you need to identify the Windows class of those controls. Then you need to read the MSDN documentation on which message you need to send that particular class of control to change its background colour, then - from the sounds of it - you are going to have to read the MSDN documentation about how to send a message to particular window. The example you linked to above is an example of an implementation of one such a hack.

You'll appreciate that, in the situation where the control's author has specifically excluded the background colour property they are unlikely to provide you with documentation about how to hack the control.

 

[Hochst]

Hello strongm,

thank you for your advise. My belly told me the example code is right. With your explanations
and the progressbar example together i am possibly able to figure it out, yust for fun. Know
i know why i cant find much information and that i need to learn more about the API.

Thank you again and please keep helping!
Hochst