Parent item in Mainmenu - ownerdraw?

Hi all

I am writing a class to control the aesthetics of a .Net MainMenu object in VB.

I have all of the child menu items displaying correctly, with icons, colours, etc; but I am having trouble with the main "parent" menuitems. When I respond to the DrawItem and MeasureItem events of the parent menuitems, the "active" area that you can click on with the mouse becomes very small - about 1/4" wide on my screen. How do I control this?


If it helps, here is the code I am using to draw the CHILD menuitems. For the parent menu items, I would just like to the ability to control font and icons - I don't need the other colours etc.

Any pointers are appreciated!

VB Code:

Private Sub _DrawMenuItem(ByVal sender As Object, ByRef e As System.Windows.Forms.DrawItemEventArgs, ByVal theIcon As String)
        Dim MenuFont As Font
        Dim FillColor As Color
        Dim BorderColor As Color
        Dim FontColor As Color
 
        Dim myRectangle As New Rectangle(e.Bounds.X, e.Bounds.Y, e.Bounds.X + 24, e.Bounds.Height)
        Dim myLinearGradientBrush As New LinearGradientBrush(myRectangle, Color.FromArgb(249, 249, 255), Color.FromArgb(165, 163, 189), LinearGradientMode.Horizontal)
        MenuFont = New System.Drawing.Font("Verdana", 8)
 
        With e.Graphics
            If e.State = (DrawItemState.Selected Or DrawItemState.NoAccelerator) Or e.State = DrawItemState.Selected Then 'hovering
                RaiseEvent ShowHandCursor()
                FillColor = Color.FromArgb(195, 211, 233)
                BorderColor = Color.FromArgb(133, 175, 232)
                FontColor = Color.FromArgb(0, 70, 165)
                .FillRectangle(New SolidBrush(FillColor), e.Bounds.X + 1, e.Bounds.Y, e.Bounds.Width, e.Bounds.Height - 1)
                .DrawRectangle(New Pen(BorderColor), e.Bounds.X + 1, e.Bounds.Y, e.Bounds.Width - 2, e.Bounds.Height - 1)
                .DrawString(sender.Text, MenuFont, New SolidBrush(FontColor), 30, e.Bounds.Y + 3)
            Else 'not hovering
                RaiseEvent ShowDefaultCursor()
                FillColor = Color.White
                FontColor = Color.Black
                .FillRectangle(New SolidBrush(FillColor), e.Bounds.X + 24, e.Bounds.Y, e.Bounds.Width, e.Bounds.Height)
                .FillRectangle(myLinearGradientBrush, e.Bounds.X, e.Bounds.Y, e.Bounds.X + 24, e.Bounds.Height)
                .DrawString(sender.Text, MenuFont, New SolidBrush(FontColor), 30, e.Bounds.Y + 3)
            End If
 
            If Not theIcon Is Nothing Then
                .DrawIcon(New Icon(New Icon(theIcon), 16, 16), e.Bounds.X + 4, e.Bounds.Y + 1)
            End If
 
        End With
    End Sub