VB6 Changing colors for every control on a form

formsvb6

I am trying to change the colour theme of an old VB6 application (make it look a bit more modern!).

Can someone tell me how I could change the backcolor of every control on a form without doing it for each and every control (label, button, frame etc!).

I have about 50 forms, all containing such controls and doing this manually for each form in code would take an age!

I am also open to better suggestions and ideas on how I can skin / theme a VB6 application?

Thanks in advance

Best Answer

The .frm files are simply standard ANSI text files. A background color property of a control would look like this:-

BackColor       =   &H80000005&

(Note the above is a system color but you can specify the RGB color using by using the lower 3 bytes and leaving the high byte 0).

A control such a Label would look like this:-

Begin VB.Label Label1 
  Caption         =   "Hello:"
  Height          =   285
  Left            =   90
  TabIndex        =   3
  Top             =   480
  Width           =   1305
End

So that task could be done lexically by parsing the .frm files and inserting (or replacing) the BackColor attribute line.

Edit:

Useful link posted in comments by MarkJ : Form Description Properties

Related Solutions

Vb6 changing colors of SSTab at runtime using label in the background

As svinto says, you can load new controls to a Control Array, but there's a bit more to it than that.

Firstly the new controls are not Visible, so you must set .Visible=True You also need to set the current tab before creating the control to get it sited on that tab.

Assuming you already have the first label on the first tab:

For i = 1 To Me.SSTab1.Tabs - 1
    Me.SSTab1.Tab = i
    Load lblOne(i)
    lblOne(i).Visible = True
Next

Also, this doesn't work in the Form_Load event, but does in Form_Activate

There is another method to create the Labels from scratch rather than using a Control Array, which might be better as you don't need to add the first Label to the form:

Private Sub Form_Activate()
    Dim lbl() As Label
    Dim i As Integer
    Dim name As String

   ReDim lbl(SSTab1.Tabs - 1)
   For i = 0 To Me.SSTab1.Tabs - 1
        Me.SSTab1.Tab = i
        name = "MyLabel" & CStr(i)
        Set lbl(i) = Form1.Controls.Add("VB.Label", name)
        Set lbl(i).Container = Me.SSTab1
        lbl(i).Visible = True
        lbl(i).Caption = name
        lbl(i).Move 40, 345
        lbl(i).BackColor = vbGreen
    Next
End Sub

R – VB6 Form Height/Width Ignored with Command Line Build

The FRM format is documented in the VB6 manual. It says the height and width are stored in Twips, as Angry Jim observed. It doesn't explain about ClientHeight and ClientWidth but as OneNerd and cmsjr have said, that's the size of the interior of the form (without menu bars and borders). The build server may also be changing the ClientLeft and ClientTop, if you have any forms with StartupPosition set to manual.

Don't ever set the Height and Width of the form at run time. Those include the menu bar and borders, which are different thicknesses on different versions of Windows or with different themes. So you'll get the wrong sizes. Set the ScaleHeight and ScaleWidth instead, which are the dimensions of the interior of the form. The VB6 runtime calculates the appropriate Height and Width from those.

And finally, just buy a new build server (or a new video card). Lead all the developers to the boss waving flaming torches and pitchforks, or perhaps just calmly explain the difference between the cost of a PC and the cost of developer time.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Vb6 changing colors of SSTab at runtime using label in the background

R – VB6 Form Height/Width Ignored with Command Line Build

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