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TOOLBARS VERSION 1.60 (UNLICENSED EVALUATION VERSION)
Two controls for Visual Basic that allow easy creation
of button-bars and status-bars in any Visual Basic for
Windows (version 3.0 or higher) application.
0. IMPORTANT NOTICE
This is the last version of the TOOLBARS.VBX that will
be sent out into the world for free use in FreeWare or
Public Domain applications. All new features that will
be built in after this release, will only be included
in commercial or ShareWare versions (see 11 and 12).
Of course, if there are any bugs in this release, an
update will be released.
1. GENERAL INFORMATION
The TOOLBARS.VBX contains two custom controls for
Visual Basic: StatusBar and ButtonBar. Both controls
have an integrated helpfile that can be called from the
VB development environment when you press F1 in the
properties-window or when you select an event in the
code window. There are also some ready to use examples
in the helpfile. Therefore this documentation-file is
very brief.
If you have a problem with (one of these) controls, or
think of an enhancement that I don't already have
planned (see the 'future enhancements' section below),
please e-mail to the special account that has been set
up for this purpose: vbx_dev@shear.iaf.nl.
2. SHORT DESCRIPTION OF VERSION 1.0 FEATURES
The StatusBar control allows you to create a statusbar
at the top or bottom of the client area of your
application to display status-messages. It offers 20
fully configurable text-fields and a few other extras
as well. Here's a quick summation:
- automatically adjusted border-line for different
alignments (top, bottom or none)
- automatically size one field (ExpandField
property) to fill the entire status-area (can be
turned off). If the window is resized, one of the
statusbar fields is resized as well.
- can be used as a progress indicator (FloodField,
FloodInvertText, FloodPercent, FloodShowPct,
FloodColor properties). Absolutely no flickering
on updates.
- adjustable left- and right-margins (LeftMargin and
RightMargin property
- etc...
Text-field specific properties:
- alignment (left, right or centered) (Alignment
property array)
- font-color (ForeColor property array)
- message (the text to display in the text-field)
(Message property array)
- field type (FieldType property array)
Field-types are:
- normal (display text in Message property)
- clock (type-of clock can be set with the
with ClockFormat property)
- num-lock indicator (user-definable text for
on- and off state)
- scroll-lock indicator ( " " )
- caps-lock indicator ( " " )
- field width (FieldWidth property array)
- define spacing between fields (SpaceAfter property
array)
- control type (for TypeOf statements): StatusBar
- etc...
The ButtonBar control allows easy creation of a
buttonbar at the top or bottom of the client area of
your application. You only have to specify a picture
for the button to create it. The ButtonBar
automagically creates the needed bitmaps for the down
and disabled states for the button with the picture you
specify. It's also possible to specify a picture for
the disabled state of the button if you don't like the
ButtonBar's disabling method. Summation of features:
- automatically adjusted border-line for different
alignments (top, bottom or none)
- create buttons by simply specifying one or two
bitmaps for the up-state of the button (Picture
and PictureDisabled property arrays).
- 2 types of buttons available: normal and 2-state
(ButtonType property array)
- group buttons into GroupPushButtons (ButtonGroup
and GroupAllowAllup property arrays)
- enable or disable individual buttons
(ButtonEnabled property array)
- connect the ButtonBar to the StatusBar to display
a message in a textfield when a user selects a
button (hWndStatusBar and StatusField properties,
and the ButtonMessage property array).
- define spacing between buttons (SpaceAfter
property array)
- control type (for TypeOf statements): ButtonBar
- etc...
3. WHAT WAS NEW IN VERSION 1.1 ?
Two bugs were fixed:
- when setting the ClockFormat property for the
StatusBar control to an AM/PM clock, the AM/PM
time-indication wasn't properly updated at 12 noon
and 12 o'clock midnight. This bug has been fixed.
- the ButtonBar control released the mouse capture after
the Click event. This is no problem if you don't show
modal forms on a click on a button, but when you do
display a modal form on a click, this window can't
receive the input-focus. This bug has been fixed by
releasing the mouse capture before firing the click
event.
Three new properties and a new event were added to the
StatusBar:
- toggle event: this event is fired whenever the num-lock
caps-lock or scroll-lock key is pressed. It helps you
to keep track of the status of these keys, for example
when you're writing a text-editor.
- AutoToggle allows users to double-click on a num-lock,
caps-lock or scroll-lock field. The statusbar control
automatically sets or resets the state of the toggle-key.
- Numlock, Capslock and ScrollLock properties allow you to
get or set the status of the num-lock, caps-lock or
scroll-lock keys.
The ButtonBar also has a new feature:
- The OutlineChildren automatically gives a three-D
outline to controls placed on the buttonbar, to make
them look raised or inset.
Also, some very stupid mistakes were corrected:
- The Enabled property was added to the StatusBar
- The Visible and Enabled properties were added to
the ButtonBar
4. WHAT WAS NEW IN VERSION 1.2 ?
Another bug was fixed:
- after clicking on a button of the ButtonBar, the
button remained down if the programmer had a DoEvents()
statement in the code under the click event. This was
caused by an extra WM_MOUSEMOVE that was generated as
a result of the DoEvents().
There were no changes to the StatusBar, but the ButtonBar had
a lot of new things:
- Real tooltips. To avoid problems with naming copyrights,
the ButtonBar calls these Button/ControlHints. You can
specify a Hint for each button you define and each control
you place on the ButtonBar. A bunch of properties were added
to control the position and look of the Hint-popup window
(Font-properties, HintBackColor, HintDelay, HintPosition,
HintOffsetX, HintOffsetY, ButtonHint property array for
specifying hints for buttons, ControlHwnd and ControlHint
properties for specifying hints for controls.
- The ShowButtonMessage properties allows you to control when
to display the ButtonMessages in the StatusBar (when the
mouse is over a button, when you select the button or
when you click the button with the right mouse-button).
- The minimum height of the ButtonBar depends on the size of
the pictures you use for the buttons, but the ButtonBar
added a small border around that. This border has been
narrowed down to one pixel.
- The number of available buttons and controls placed on the
ButtonBar has been increased to 30.
- All buttons are automatically disabled when the ButtonBar
is disabled and are enabled again if the ButtonBar is
enabled. This was the case already, but now the user gets
some visual feedback as well (the buttons look disabled).
- There are now properties to support all states of a button.
The PictureDown and PictureDisabledDown property arrays
allow you to completely define all states a button can have.
Also, the helpfile was enhanced and now included an example
of how to use the ButtonBar together with the PictureClip control
that comes with Visual Basic.
5. WHAT WAS NEW IN VERSION 1.3 ?
Two bugs were fixed:
- The ButtonBar erroneously displayed the ButtonHints button remained down if the programmer had a DoEvents()
even if another window had captured the mouse (for example
if you pulled down a menu over the ButtonBar). This has
been fixed.
- The ButtonBar only displayed control-hints if the Outline-
Children property was set to anything but zero. This also
has been fixed.
One new property was added to the StatusBar:
- The FieldOutline property arrays lets you define the
way fields look on the StatusBar (raised, inset or
no outline at all).
The ButtonBar has a number of new features:
- The ShowButtonMessage was renamed to ShowStatusMessage.
You can now also synchronize the StatusBar messages and
the Button/ControlHints by setting the ShowStatusMessage
property to 4 (=Together with Hint).
- MAJOR IMPROVEMENT: It is now possible to store a bitmap
containing all the tiny bitmaps needed for defining the
buttons on the ButtonBar in the ButtonBar control.
You can do this with the ButtonPictures property. The
ButtonRows and ButtonColumns properties allow you to define
the number of rows and columns of button-pictures in the
bitmap. After that you can use the ButtonPicture property
array to retreive the tiny bitmaps from the big bitmap
and set the Picture(), PictureDown() etc property arrays
from them.
This means that it is no longer necessary to load all the
tiny bitmaps from disk, since the bitmap in the Button-
Pictures property is saved within your application.
A further advantage is that you can easily define all
buttons on the ButtonBar in a single for-loop.
For details and an example, see the help-file.
- For convenience, this release of TOOLBARS.VBX also contains
a Visual Basic program (only source code, you'll have to
compile it yourself) that allows you to create a large
bitmap from several tiny ones. It includes loading and
saving of the bitmap-positions you've defined, an auto-
grid (so the tiny bitmaps will fit nicely together) and
fully automatic generation of the large bitmap. For
instructions how to use the sample application, see the
readme file in the self-extracting zip-file.
Also, the helpfile was modified. The PicClip example was removed
and replaced by a ButtonPictures example.
6. WHAT WAS NEW IN VERSION 1.4 ?
Three bugs were fixed:
- The ButtonBar behaved strange if you had more than one
in your project. This has been fixed.
- If your code had an Unload statement in the code following
a click on a field of the StatusBar or a button on the
ButtonBar, VB crashed. This has also been fixed.
- A lot of properties-values (including the FieldWidth and
SpaceAfter properties) couldn't exceed the value 127.
This was because of some crummy optimization I had built
in. This has been removed. The maximum value is now 32767.
Also, some errors in the helpfile were corrected.
One property was removed and four new properties were added
to the StatusBar. All the font related properties were changed
to property arrays.
- The biggest improvement is the FieldProperties property.
This property has no value, but instead, pops up a dialog
box were you can define all field-related properties during
design time. So you don't need to do any coding anymore to
completely define your StatusBar.
- The AdjustFieldHeight property makes all fields on the
StatusBar equal in height or adjusts the height of a field
according to the fontsize of that field.
- The BackColor property array allows you to define a different
background color for each text-field.
- The FIELD_CLOCK FieldType has changed to a FIELD_DATETIME.
So now you can not only show the time but also the date.
- To support the new date/time field properly, the ClockFormat
property was removed and the DateTimeFormat property array
was added. This allows you to define a different format for
each date/time field you may have on the StatusBar. The
DateTime format property handles all strings for formatting
dates and times that are supported in the Visual Basic
Format$ function.
- All text-fields now have font related properties of their
own. The FontName, FontSize, FontBold etc. properties have
been chang to control-arrays.
The ButtonBar has only one new property:
- The ButtonProperties property. Like the FieldProperties
property in the StatusBar, this property has no value,
but pops up a dialog box were you can define all button-
related properties during design time. So you don't need
any coding anymore to define your ButtonBar.
7. WHAT WAS NEW IN VERSION 1.47?
Three bugs in the ButtonBar were fixed:
- For some reason, the ButtonEnabled property didn't function
properly anymore. The button looked disabled, but could be
pressed like any other button. This was fixed.
- On some systems, using the ButtonProperties dialog, caused
VB to crash. This was fixed as well (thank you beta-testers).
- The ButtonMessage for disabled buttons, was displayed in
the StatusBar, but never removed. This was fixed also.
New features:
- Enhanced ButtonProperties and FieldProperties dialogs
The ButtonProperties and FieldProperties, used for setting
almost all of the property arrays of the Button- and
StatusBar, have been enhanced. To the right of the list
containing all the buttons/fields are four new buttons.
These buttons allow you to insert, delete and reposition
the buttons/fields on the Button/StatusBar.
The ButtonProperties dialog has also been extended to enable
you to make a connection between the ButtonBar and an exis-
ting StatusBar at design time. Also, it is now possible to
select a picturefile from disk in the ButtonProperties
dialog.
New Properties for the ButtonBar control:
- ButtonVisible property array
This property allows you to make buttons visible/invisible
at run-time.
- IgnoreInvisibleButtons property
Use this property to specify if the remaining buttons should
shift to the left or right whenever a button on the ButtonBar
is made (in)visible.
- ShowDisabledMessages/ShowDisabledHints properties
These properties allow you to specify whether or not the
ButtonBar should display Button/ControlMessages or Button/
ControlHints for disabled buttons or controls.
8. WHAT WAS NEW IN VERSION 1.48/1.49
A few bugs in ButtonBar were fixed:
- The IgnoreInvisibleButtons property didn't function properly.
After setting the property to True and after that closing
and reopening the form displayed a gray box in the upper
left corner of the ButtonBar. This has been fixed
- The slider in the ButtonProperties dialog didn't work
correctly for large buttons. This has been fixed as well.
- The 1.47 version behaved erroneously if a StatusBar was
coupled to the ButtonBar with the ButtonProperties dialog.
It could even cause VB to crash. This has been fixed.
The StatusBar had one new property and a new event:
- MenuTagsField property
This property tells the StatusBar to monitor menu-browsing
on the form the StatusBar is placed upon. If a user selects
a menu-item the StatusBar obtains the text from the Tag
property of that menu-item and displays it in the field
specified by the MenuTagsField property.
- SysMenuBrowse Event
This event occurs whenever the MenuTagsField property is
set to something other than -1 and a user is browsing
through the system-menu. Since the system-menu of each form
doesn't have a Tag property, the StatusBar fires an event,
specifying the currently selected item from the system
menu. By modifying the Message parameter of the event, you
can specify a message for each system-menu item.
9. BUG FIXES IN VERSION 1.5(5)(60)
Some minor bugs in the StatusBar and the ButtonBar were fixed.
Also, version 1.6 fixes a problem that locks up your system if
you used the StatusBar together with a subclassing control
such as the MessageBlaster or CSForm.
10. KNOWN PROBLEMS/BUGS
None at the moment. If you find any however, please
inform me at the e-mail address mentioned earlier in
this file.
11. FUTURE ENHANCEMENTS
Some suggestions and remarks have made clear that there
is at least one possible future enhancement for
the StatusBar control:
- pictures for a field instead of only a text (Something
like a FieldPicture property array).
The ButtonBar control als has some extra features I'm
considering to implement:
- moveable/floatable buttonbar (like the ones in Word 6.0)
- alignment at the top, bottom, left and right of
the form.
If you have more suggestions or remarks, let me know.
12. ARCHIVE CONTENTS AND INSTALLATION NOTES
This archive's original name is TOOLB146.ZIP and contains
the following files:
TOOLBARS.VBX The toolbars vbx-library.
TOOLBARS.HLP Design time helpfile.
ORDER.FRM Order form
README.1ST This file
MKBITMAP.EXE A self-extracting archive containing the
BUTTONS.BMP file and the bitmap creator Visual
Basic program
In order to use the toolbars vbx you must copy the
file TOOLBARS.VBX to your Windows system directory. To be able
to use the design time help, you have to copy the TOOLBARS.HLP
file to the Visual Basic directory. If you want to use the
bitmap creation sample application, just executable the
MKBUTTON executable.
13. DISCLAIMER
The TOOLBARS.VBX control library is distributed "as is"
and without warranties as to performance or
merchantability or any other warranties whether
expressed or implied. No warranty of fitness for a
particular purpose is either expressed or implied.
14. LICENSE AGREEMENT AND COPYRIGHT
In this notice, "The controls" refers to the
TOOLBARS.VBX custom controls library for Visual Basic
and the "the author" refers to SheAr software.
The control is copyright (C) 1995 by the author. You may
distribute this control only with FreeWare of Public
Domain applications without any charge. If you like these
controls and would like to use it in a commercial or shareware
application, you have to pay for it.
15. ORDERING INFORMATION
The licensing fee for a commercial of shareware version
is 25 Dutch guilders (approx. 17 US Dollars) for a shareware
version and 50 Dutch guilders (approx. 35 US Dollars) for a
commercial version. To order, send the included order form
(remember to sign it) to the address mentioned in the form.
Benefits of buying the TOOLBARS.VBX:
- You'll receive two versions of the VBX, one for you to use
in the Visual Basic design time environment. Another one,
significantly smaller but not usable in the VB design time
environment, to distribute with your applications.
- A printed manual.
- One year unlimited free support. Either by mail, e-mail or
telephone.
- One year of free updates. Whenever a new version gets out
or a bug has been reported, you'll receive detailed work-
around information or a new version by mail or e-mail.
- Finaly, the 'nag-screen' (the about box that comes up
in the VB development environment) won't be present in the
licensed version (of course).
16. FURTHER NOTES
This is the nineth release of TOOLBARS.VBX. Although
all major bugs have been fixed, It's still not guaranteed
to be error-free, but I think it works pretty well.
If you wish to use it in your applications (subject to
the above restriction), you may do so.
Arjen Broeze
vbx_dev@shear.iaf.nl
09/02/95