This is an advanced, single file'd, ownerdraw toolbar with, XPstyle/Normal HoverEffect, Custom ToolTips with balloon style and icons, Unicode support, fully customizable Gradient effects, Tiled background and many more... It is stylish, customizable and easy to use. The control does not use any property pages for item manipulation! All the opeartions can be done directly from the vb's property window. I think it is a well packed control with the most powerful routines. Chek this first release (may contain bugs)... and give me ur valuable feedbacks and comments!!! Jim Jose :-))
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PSC is collecting a nice UC collection :-) // Well done and quite well packed (2000 lines)! // Only a minor slip: check for a valid m_Button_Index in CreateTooltip routine (>-1). You can reproduce this in top *tool*bar. Clever use of WM_TIMER. (If this comment was disrespectful, please report it.)
Well done Jim .. I admire all ur posts .. Keep the good work ... as for me I give you 7 (*******) (If this comment was disrespectful, please report it.)
Next is only a happy suggestion: It would be nice (this could be applied to all usercontrols) to allow user full control of renderings. I mean, allow for example the following (optional) events: OnBackgroundPaint and OnItemPaint, passing hDC, rectangle bounds and item state related information (selected, focused, disabled...). Some additional routines could be added to help on this (PaintHelper_XXX) like PaintHelper_RenderIcon... depending on usercontrol nature. (If this comment was disrespectful, please report it.)
Looks good but it looks like you haven't tested it with large or custom fonts... as autosize doesn't size properly on my machine. (If this comment was disrespectful, please report it.)
Subscript out of range on the Sub CreateToolTip() on line If m_ButtonItem(m_Button_Index).TB_ToolTipText = vbNullString Then (If this comment was disrespectful, please report it.)
Another great job Jim! I'll get back to you when I've explored this more in depth. It looks like you and I are engaged in a bloody and violent usercontrol war this month :-) I'm glad I got a head start - I needed it! - Matt (If this comment was disrespectful, please report it.)
Carles, giving more conrol over uc paint events is nice. I will try to implement this in the next update!. Thanks (If this comment was disrespectful, please report it.)
Matt, bloody war?? :)) Hey, I was not at all planning about this before 2 days... I was done very quick to use in my another project. Also I wish to thank to u , bcose I got aware of Carles's bitmap tiling code from u!! Thanks a lot!! (If this comment was disrespectful, please report it.)
1) It revises when the mouse is outside of an item of the toolbar, procedure CreateToolTip produce the error 9. (If this comment was disrespectful, please report it.)
Nice one, just a little suggestion.. it would be great if you could put support for design time button_index selection with mouse button. (If this comment was disrespectful, please report it.)
Jim - do you ever sleep? :) Another great control and 5* from me. I love the use of WM_TIMER over a Timer control. (If this comment was disrespectful, please report it.)
Jim, you've got a lot of 5s for this great control. My five are especialy to thank you for the hard work you put into the detailed demonstration. Doing a fine control AND making a good demo for it, thats the art! ;-) Regards - LiTe (If this comment was disrespectful, please report it.)
Also, a little bug i found, (Might be just my system) But when the top (Horizontal) Toolbar is dragged, the application crashes. (If this comment was disrespectful, please report it.)
Luthfi, the idea of allowing mouse events is great! but it recures design subclassing, which is not working with Paul Cartons self subclasser code. For that we need an extra module and can only be used as compiled ocx (not with in the project). (If this comment was disrespectful, please report it.)
LiTe, "Art of programming??" nice comment!. I wend for a bit more detailed demo bcose, the functionality is not so common (even if it is very simple to understand!) (If this comment was disrespectful, please report it.)
when you move the mouse over the control and the container form is not the active window It Is activated. this is for the topmost position on the tooltip. If you remove It It works fine. It's a very nice control, you did It again, congratulations. a small suggestion Is to give It WinXP Theme properties (with Uxtheme.dll) Regards (If this comment was disrespectful, please report it.)
Jim, nice control, 5*! I haven't had much time for PSC (or VB for that matter) lately, but I'm trying to work up a new release of the self-subclassing UserControl. I'll take a look to see if design-time subclassing is feasible.
BTW, it's Caton, not Carton (If this comment was disrespectful, please report it.)
Paul Caton, Ooops... Sorry! my mistake :) I am very happy to see u here. Yeah, it will be a huge advantage if self-subclasser can support design time subclassing. It can create a new generation of usercontrols!. And thx for voting! (If this comment was disrespectful, please report it.)
Jim, Very nicely done!!! Thanks Millions for this !!! May I use this commercially? ***** from Me James (If this comment was disrespectful, please report it.)
Riccardo, So that error is not only for "The One". I will thick seriously on this... Thanks for informin :) (If this comment was disrespectful, please report it.)
tr0piiic, I am a little bit confused with this part. Since the control is taking the full advantage of vb's property window, a large number of options(properties) may feel messy!. But, button states are often needed and I will try to add it (without much complications) :) (If this comment was disrespectful, please report it.)
I appreciate a lot of the cognisance that a user control should not be unduly complicated to use. However, this control fails some basic test. Putting aside the discussion on features, any user control should meet the basic requirements: (i) good on both non-XP and XP platforms and (ii) good on Small and Large Font Windows settings. This control has not met the basic requirements yet.
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I don't agree since with you this control still this in development (for my your requirements are applied, but the control can improve more), but of something I'm sure it's that the friend Jim is improving it with passing of the time. (If this comment was disrespectful, please report it.)
Herman, I know this control is not perfect. But please understand it is the first release of this control and still is in development. There is a lot of improvement (shadow, pressed state,enable, win98 style & including some u suggested) for the unreleased version. I was temporarly out of this project, so I could not release the new version 1.4. Also I wish to make a VALID upgrade for this control other than get messed with a lot of updates! Anyway the new version (1.4) will be released soon..... (If this comment was disrespectful, please report it.)
Not sure if you are already aware of this but if you hover the mouse over the top toolbar beyond the last button (on right) then you get an "Index out of bounds" error in the CreateToolTip routine on the control... Looks great though and I will 5 it. (If this comment was disrespectful, please report it.)
Hi guys, the new version 1.4 is just released! I tried consider almost all ur feedbacks. Now the control has WIn98 styles... but there is no real seperation b/w XpStyle and Win98 style(ie, u can set appearnace for both these, by simply changing some related properties). I am planning one more version(1.6) which will support "Seperators" and "PopUpMenus". (If this comment was disrespectful, please report it.)
Nice upgrade and realy nice ideas for version 1.6. But here is a minor bug now: Do mousedown on toolbar a button, hold it and move mouse out of toolbar, now release mouse button. now go mouse over the same toolbar. The mouse over effects doesn't work anymore (Picture). Thx for the great works... (If this comment was disrespectful, please report it.)
One extra thing that is needed, is that if the toolbar is longer or higher then the form, you can not access the hidden buttons. It needs chevrons or such to scroll to those buttons. Otherwise, fantastic work. (If this comment was disrespectful, please report it.)
Ooops... What u mean by 'Chevrons'??? I just wish to give the menu generating option that u can see on Windows Explorer's "Back" and "Forward" buttons on toolbar!! (If this comment was disrespectful, please report it.)
Hi jim Excellent work(*****), i added a property pages to the porject to help me in the desing of the toolbar and compiled it in ocx type, im added a new property called ButtonKey as String, that help me in Click Event to select a Button from string that identify this. (If this comment was disrespectful, please report it.)
Anibal, If u wish to use the control as an ocx... then a property page is the right solution. I just tried to make it useful compiled with the project!. Anyway good work! I appreatiate all the developments on this control :) Jim Jose (If this comment was disrespectful, please report it.)
I do hope you are planning on adding Chevrons (arrows) for the next release, in case the toolbar does not fit on the form, because it is too wide. (If this comment was disrespectful, please report it.)
I know there is lot more to improve. I will post a new version for this control rewriting all the drawing routines from scrach!! The new version will be with multi-interface (win98,xp,flat,java and many more) (If this comment was disrespectful, please report it.)
Exceptional work. Looking forward to any updates. One improvement would be to allow the each button to be sized separately. This would allow for longer captions to be displayed to the right of icons better and more uniformly.
Nice work.
(If this comment was disrespectful, please report it.)
May the code elves grant you an academy award for superb code works. Its nice to learn your work (If this comment was disrespectful, please report it.)
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10/4/2005 5:16:39 PM: 
