Passing Controls/Forms Objects to a Function

Hello All,

I've been head scratching, googling and experimenting to try to find the right way of doing this but to no avail.

Here's what I want to do:

Apply a common 'theme' to each of the controls on each of my forms by looping through all the controls on each form when it loads (or should it be initialise?) and applying common colours\styles etc, according to the type of control. To save code I was hoping to have this theme code in a module so it could be called from any one of the forms

So here's what I thought would work:

In each of the Form Load subs:

Code:

---

Dim ACtl As Control

For Each ACtl In Me.Controls
    SetTheme(ACtl)
Next

---

and in a module:

Code:

---

Public Sub SetTheme(ACtl As Control)

    If (TypeOf ACtl Is DTPicker) Then
        ACtrl.BackColor = RGB(255, 255, 255) 'white
        ACtrl.ForeColor = RGB(255, 128, 0) 'orange

    ElseIf TypeOf ACtl Is TextBox Then
        ACtl.ForeColor = vbRed
'etc
'etc
    End If

End Sub

---

but it doesnt work......

Any ideas ?

Thanks, I've got a lot learn on this subject...........

Call SetTheme(ACtl), not SetTheme(ACtl)
or... SetTheme ACtl

How now?

LaVolpe,

You got it in one..... thanks so much !

When calling subroutines, don't enclose your parameters in parentheses or if you do, precede the line with the keyword Call. Using parentheses in that specific case forces VB to evaluate what's enclosed as an expression and then VB passes the the value evaluated to, not the control, itself, as you obviously wanted to do.

When calling functions, same rule applies unless you are assigning the function's return value to a variable

Ah OK, Got it.

So would it be more efficient (or possible) to pass the form and do the loop in the module? Something like:

Call SetTheme (Me)

and then...

Public Sub SetTheme(AForm As Form)

Dim ACtl as Control

For Each ACtl in AForm

If (TypeOf ACtl Is DTPicker) Then
ACtrl.BackColor = RGB(255, 255, 255) 'white
ACtrl.ForeColor = RGB(255, 128, 0) 'orange

ElseIf TypeOf ACtl Is TextBox Then
ACtl.ForeColor = vbRed
'etc
'etc
End If

Next

End Sub

More efficient? Yes, simply because you are calling an outside method only once vs. calling it once for each control

Great thanks, makes perfect sense, I'm trying it right now.....

Thanks again for your help