[RESOLVED] Weird behaviour with a combobox selection color

Hello everybody,

I want to have a combobox that has different colors for it's items. So here is an example.

New Form with an added combobox.

'STRUCTURE THAT HOLDS THE DATA FOR THE COMBOBOX ITEMS
Public Structure ColoredComboboxItem
Dim Text As String
Dim Color As Color
Public Overrides Function ToString() As String
Return Text
End Function
End Structure

WHEN FORM LOADS, LOAD SOME DATA INTO THE COMBOBOX:

Dim myItem As New ColoredComboboxItem
With myItem
.Text = "Festo AG"
.Color = Color.Black
End With
ComboBox1.Items.Add(myItem)

myItem = New ColoredComboboxItem
With myItem
.Text = "Bosch-Rexroth"
.Color = Color.LightGray
End With
ComboBox1.Items.Add(myItem)

myItem = New ColoredComboboxItem
With myItem
.Text = "Parcon"
.Color = Color.Black
End With
ComboBox1.Items.Add(myItem)


and the last thing is to write the DrawItem event for the combobox:

Private Sub ComboBox1_DrawItem(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.Windows.Forms.DrawItemEventArgs) Handles ComboBox1.DrawItem
e.DrawBackground()
'GET ITEM TO DRAW
Dim myItem As ColoredComboboxItem = DirectCast(ComboBox1.Items(e.Index), ColoredComboboxItem)
'DRAW TEXT USING SPECIFIED FONT AND COLOR
If e.State = DrawItemState.Selected Then
e.Graphics.DrawString(myItem.Text, e.Font, New SolidBrush(Color.White), e.Bounds)
Else
e.Graphics.DrawString(myItem.Text, e.Font, New SolidBrush(myItem.Color), e.Bounds)
End If
e.DrawFocusRectangle()
End Sub

This works as planned. Now, if the color of the text is black I want it to turn white when it is selected. Otherwise it will be very difficult to read (black on blue). So I wrote the "if e.State = DrawItemState.Selected then" statement.

And it works.

But if I add a label anywhere on the form then this statement doesn't work at all.

Just make a new form with a added combobox and copy the code. I think this is weird. As soon as I delete my label it works.

Any ideas how to solve this problem? And why does it occur?

Thank you.

PS. The combobox DrawMode property must be set to OwnerDrawFixed or OwnerDrawVariable

I have noticed that if I add a button I get the same behaviour? Can anyone help?

If this can't be done, how can I change the selection color to a lighter one?

For reasons that I wot not, the presence of a label or button (and possibly other controls) sends e.State into a kind of 'verbose' mode. Counter it with ...

If e.State = DrawItemState.Selected OrElse e.State = 769 Then

... 769 is the integer value of [Selected, NoAccelerator, NoFocusRect], for what it's worth.

I struggled all day with this and found no solution. But your solution works just fine.
I couldn't think of that in a million years :)

Thanks a lot Dunfiddlin. It works very well now.

Cheers!