Resolved: Vista effects

Nice aren't they?

Anyone any clue how to do this in VB6?
Specifically the glass like effects and the fade in and fade out

Complete source-code would be appreciated, but the names of the effects would, I suppose, suffice.

Cheers chaps

if you're looking for modifying a windows transparency/translucency then have a look at the examples in the codebank.

the API in question is SetLayeredWindowAttributes - but unfortunately it's too long to search for and a wild-card search doesn't bring up any hits from the codebank :confused:

Anyway - are they the sort of effects you're looking for?

SetLayeredWindowAttributes is usually accompanied by GetWindowLong / SetWindowLong / WS_EX_TRANSPARENT/ WS_EX_LAYERED / LWA_COLORKEY / GWL_EXSTYLE. You'll get some false +ves in search, but there it is....

Here's what I came up with.

VB Code:

Option Explicit
 
Private mAlpha As Long
Private mFade As FADE
 
Private Sub Form_Load()
    
    ' Set window style to layered
    '
    SetWindowLongW Me.hWnd, GWL_EXSTYLE, GetWindowLongW(Me.hWnd, GWL_EXSTYLE) Or WS_EX_LAYERED
    AlphaBlend.Interval = 30
    AlphaBlend.Enabled = True
    mAlpha = -20
    mFade = FadeIn
    
End Sub
 
Private Sub Form_Unload(Cancel As Integer)
    If mAlpha > 0 Then
        Cancel = True
    End If
End Sub
 
Private Sub Form_QueryUnload(Cancel As Integer, UnloadMode As Integer)
    
    If mAlpha > 0 Then
        AlphaBlend.Enabled = True
        mFade = FadeOut
    Else
        Unload Me
    End If
    
End Sub
 
Private Sub AlphaBlend_Timer()
 
    If mFade = FadeIn Then
        mAlpha = mAlpha + 20
        If mAlpha > 255 Then
            AlphaBlend.Enabled = False
            SetLayeredWindowAttributes Me.hWnd, 0, 255, LWA_ALPHA
        Else
            SetLayeredWindowAttributes Me.hWnd, 0, mAlpha, LWA_ALPHA
        End If
    Else
        mAlpha = mAlpha - 20
        If mAlpha < 0 Then
            AlphaBlend.Enabled = False
            SetLayeredWindowAttributes Me.hWnd, 0, 0, LWA_ALPHA
            mAlpha = -1
            Unload Me
        Else
            SetLayeredWindowAttributes Me.hWnd, 0, mAlpha, LWA_ALPHA
        End If
    End If
    
End Sub

with these winapi's:

VB Code:

'**************************
'* Win32 Constants . . .
'**************************
Public Const LWA_ALPHA As Long = &H2
Public Const GWL_EXSTYLE As Long = (-20)
Public Const WS_EX_LAYERED = &H80000
 
'********************************
'* Win32 API declarations  . . .
'********************************
Public Declare Function GetWindowLongW Lib "user32" (ByVal hWnd As Long, ByVal nIndex As Long) As Long
Public Declare Function SetWindowLongW Lib "user32" (ByVal hWnd As Long, ByVal nIndex As Long, ByVal dwNewLong As Long) As Long
Public Declare Function SetLayeredWindowAttributes Lib "user32" (ByVal hWnd As Long, ByVal crKey As Long, ByVal bAlpha As Byte, ByVal dwFlags As Long) As Long