Design Tips and Help

[tofira]

Hey,
I'm building a program in VB6. The program is almost done, but its design is pretty ugly and childish.

Here are a few examples of how the program looks like-

http://i634.photobucket.com/albums/u...fira1/main.jpg
http://i634.photobucket.com/albums/u...1/calendar.jpg
http://i634.photobucket.com/albums/u...fira1/view.jpg

I was wondering if you guys could tell me what you think about how it looks, and possibly give me some advise that will make the program look more professional

Thanks a lot!

[tofira]

Eh, I'm bumping the thread up so people could look at it, hopes its ok.

[Jim Davis]

Because of the trends are going to the vista/win7 design way, it would be better to attach a .manifest file for your executable, that is forces your app, to use the common controls 6, that is used in the new applications. It is will give you the themed buttons/scrollbars and everything else, on your forms.

You may also want to include once, a simple code to your Form_Load and Form_Unload events, on the first form that will appear on the startup of your app. To get the following work, you have to place the .manifest file in the folder where your app gets executed, and name it after your application.

-> MyApp.EXE
-> MyApp.EXE.manifest


Some declares goes to the top of your form's code.

Option Explicit
Private hMod As Long
Private Declare Function InitCommonControls Lib "Comctl32.dll" () As Long
Private Declare Function LoadLibrary Lib "kernel32" Alias "LoadLibraryA" (ByVal lpLibFileName As String) As Long
Private Declare Function FreeLibrary Lib "kernel32" (ByVal hLibModule As Long) As Long

Init the common controls, and load shell32.dll to avoid any crash at when the program quits.

Private Sub Form_Load()

Dim InitCC As Long
hMod = LoadLibrary("shell32.dll")
InitCC = InitCommonControls

'....

Release the shell32.dll.

Private Sub Form_Unload(Cancel As Integer)
  Call FreeLibrary(hMod)
End Sub

Any other design tips, are based on your imagination. But i would recommend you to google some applications that you like their skins, and check their screenshot to get some new ideas.