[VB6] ActiveX CommonControls (Replacement of the MS common controls)

[myfav]

Krool, thanks for the great work!

I tried to place the "[VB6] ActiveX CommonControls" in the MS VFP's IDE:

LabelW's OK!
CommandButtonW's OK!
CheckBoxW's OK!
RichTextBox's OK!
TreeView's OK!

But unfortunately "TextBoxW" CRASHED while I just placed it into the Form in DesignMode! I've download the "UniText"(https://www.vbforums.com/showthread....ase-2008-06-19) before, it's OK. I think maybe there's something wrong with TextBoxW during UserControl_Initialize() while TextBoxDesignMode's True.

[Krool]

Krool, thanks for the great work!

I tried to place the "[VB6] ActiveX CommonControls" in the MS VFP's IDE:

LabelW's OK!
CommandButtonW's OK!
CheckBoxW's OK!
RichTextBox's OK!
TreeView's OK!

But unfortunately "TextBoxW" CRASHED while I just placed it into the Form in DesignMode! I've download the "UniText"(https://www.vbforums.com/showthread....ase-2008-06-19) before, it's OK. I think maybe there's something wrong with TextBoxW during UserControl_Initialize() while TextBoxDesignMode's True.

Hmm. I don't know. Why does the more complex RichTextBox work but not the TextBox?
IMO UserControl_Initialize is not the cause as TextBoxDesignMode's not True there yet.
Can you compile the OCX again for testing and put off Call CreateTextBox in sub _InitProperties and _ ReadProperties?
So we pinpoint if it has something todo with the UserControl or the API window.

[MountainMan]

Version 3 of the Documentation and Compile Utility for Krool's controls has been released here.

MountainMan

[Caine]

First of all, thank you very much for your efforts, Krool. Your controls work very reliably and I use them quite often these days.

I do have an issue with ImageLists and property pages, though. Here's how to reproduce:

1. Create a new project and add a reference to VBCCR17
2. Add two image list controls to a form
3. Open the property page and add an image
4. Now, without closing the property page select the second image list and add an image
5. Upon selecting an image the IDE produces a run-time error 0

Afterwards, if you try to open the property page there are some follow-up errors like "Runtime-error -2147221164 (80040154) [Class not registered]" and "Automation error" without any additional information. A restart of the IDE is required to get things working again.

If you were to save the project after having properly added an image or two to the ImageList controls and try to re-use the property page, all the saved images are lost.

This procedure just works with the original ImageList.

[Krool]

First of all, thank you very much for your efforts, Krool. Your controls work very reliably and I use them quite often these days.

I do have an issue with ImageLists and property pages, though. Here's how to reproduce:

1. Create a new project and add a reference to VBCCR17
2. Add two image list controls to a form
3. Open the property page and add an image
4. Now, without closing the property page select the second image list and add an image
5. Upon selecting an image the IDE produces a run-time error 0

Afterwards, if you try to open the property page there are some follow-up errors like "Runtime-error -2147221164 (80040154) [Class not registered]" and "Automation error" without any additional information. A restart of the IDE is required to get things working again.

If you were to save the project after having properly added an image or two to the ImageList controls and try to re-use the property page, all the saved images are lost.

This procedure just works with the original ImageList.

Solved/Fixed. Thanks

[clintc]

Thank you Krool for this fantastic tool and excellent piece of work!

I am missing the "UpTo" method of the RichTextBox component.

If there are no plans to add it, then I will create in my code a function to do just that (InStr and SetStart).

[Krool]

Thank you Krool for this fantastic tool and excellent piece of work!

I am missing the "UpTo" method of the RichTextBox component.

If there are no plans to add it, then I will create in my code a function to do just that (InStr and SetStart).

You can post the code here when you are sure it mimics 1:1 to what the MS RTB is doing. I could add this method to VBCCR17 without breaking compatibility...

[wardjk]

....

[wardjk]

I've been using VBCCR16.OCX and added VBCCR17.OCX in preparation of upgrading VBCCR16 controls to VBCCR17. The buttons in the VB6 IDE Toolbox for VBCCR17.OCX only show as black squares. The buttons for VBCCR16.OCX still show fine. I'm using VB6 (SP6) on Windows 10. The image shows the symptom. The VBCCR17 buttons are between the standard default buttons and those of VBCCR16. The inclusion of VBCCR16 in the project components does not affect the symptom and is included in the project of this image just for comparison. What can I do to make the buttons of VBCCR17 show the proper icons?
Attachment 182259

I'd delete this post if I could. I think I had a corrupted OCX. The buttons show fine with the replaced OCX.

[quickbbbb]

.........

[quickbbbb]

.......

[jpfa]

Is there any documentation available appart from what you can get from the object browser?
I have a problem with TextBoxW. If I assign a unicode string to the .Text property the non-Ansi characters are displayed as question marks. If I assign the same string to an unicode api MessageBoxW all the characters are displayed correctly. What am I doing wrong?

[Mith]

I have a problem with TextBoxW. If I assign a unicode string to the .Text property the non-Ansi characters are displayed as question marks. If I assign the same string to an unicode api MessageBoxW all the characters are displayed correctly.

Can you provide us a vb project with the TextBoxW and your unicode string so we can test this at our computer?

[jpfa]

It took a while to reduce my project to a small piece just to demonstrate the problem. Maybe it can be reduced even more, but I think this isn't too much code. I kept all the variables and functions involved names untouched. I deleted the unnecessary lines to make it more readable. (My complete project is huge).

You must create a new project and add 2 references:
Debug Object for AddressOf Subclassing (DbgWProc.dll)
VB Common Controls Replacement 1.7 Library (VBCCR17.OCX)
I assume you have these already registered.

Add one form and set it to be the initial object.
In the form place a TextBoxW control and name it TextBoxW1,
and a CommandButton control and name it Command1.

Add a module.

Code for the form:

Option Explicit

Private Declare Function MessageBox Lib "user32.dll" Alias "MessageBoxW" (ByVal hWnd As Long, ByVal lpText As Long, ByVal lpCaption As Long, ByVal wType As Long) As Long

Private Sub MsgBoxW(ByVal Txt As String)
    MessageBox Me.hWnd, StrPtr(Txt), StrPtr("Title"), vbInformation
End Sub

Private Sub Command1_Click()
    Dim Japanese As String

    Japanese = ChrW(49) & ChrW(46) & ChrW(32) & ChrW(37329) & ChrW(30000) & ChrW(19968) & ChrW(32789) & ChrW(21161) & ChrW(12398) & ChrW(12486) & ChrW(12540) & ChrW(12510) & ChrW(32) & ChrW(40) & ChrW(84) & ChrW(104) & ChrW(101) & ChrW(109) & ChrW(101) & ChrW(32) & ChrW(79) & ChrW(102) & ChrW(32) & ChrW(75) & ChrW(111) & ChrW(104) & ChrW(115) & ChrW(117) & ChrW(107) & ChrW(101) & ChrW(32) & ChrW(75) & ChrW(105) & ChrW(110) & ChrW(100) & ChrW(97) & ChrW(105) & ChrW(99) & ChrW(104) & ChrW(105) & ChrW(41) & ChrW(46) & ChrW(109) & ChrW(112) & ChrW(51)
    TextBoxW1.Text = Japanese
    MsgBoxW Japanese
End Sub

Private Sub Form_Load()
    SubclassAll Me, False
End Sub

Private Sub Form_Unload(Cancel As Integer)
    SubclassAll Me, True
End Sub

Code for the module:

Option Explicit

Public Declare Function CallWindowProc Lib "user32" Alias "CallWindowProcA" (ByVal lpPrevWndFunc As Long, ByVal hWnd As Long, ByVal Msg As Long, ByVal wParam As Long, ByVal lParam As Long) As Long 'en la API "wParam As Long" está mal; debe ser ByVal "wParam As Integer"
Public Declare Function SetWindowLong Lib "user32" Alias "SetWindowLongA" (ByVal hWnd As Long, ByVal nIndex As Long, ByVal dwNewLong As Long) As Long
Public Const GWL_WNDPROC = -4

Public DWPHookColl As New Collection
Public lpPrevWndProcColl As New Collection

Public Sub SubclassAll(FrmX As Form, ByVal UnSubclass As Boolean)
    Dim CtrlX As Control
    Dim hWnd As Long
    
    Subclass1 FrmX.hWnd, UnSubclass
    For Each CtrlX In FrmX.Controls
        hWnd = 0
        On Error Resume Next 'CtrlX may not have hWnd
        hWnd = CtrlX.hWnd
        On Error GoTo 0
        If hWnd <> 0 Then
            Subclass1 hWnd, UnSubclass
        End If
    Next
End Sub

Public Sub Subclass1(ByVal hWnd As Long, ByVal UnSubclass As Boolean)
    Dim lpPrevWndProc As Long
    Dim DWPHook As WindowProcHook
            
    If UnSubclass Then
        On Error Resume Next 'lpPrevWndProcColl(CStr(hWnd)) may not exist
            lpPrevWndProc = lpPrevWndProcColl(CStr(hWnd))
        On Error GoTo 0
        If lpPrevWndProc <> 0 Then
            SetWindowLong hWnd, GWL_WNDPROC, lpPrevWndProc
        End If
        On Error Resume Next
            DWPHookColl.Remove (CStr(hWnd)) 'indirectly free WindowProcHook
        On Error GoTo 0
    Else
        Set DWPHook = CreateWindowProcHook
        DWPHook.SetMainProc AddressOf WindowProc
        lpPrevWndProc = SetWindowLong(hWnd, GWL_WNDPROC, DWPHook.ProcAddress)
        DWPHook.SetDebugProc lpPrevWndProc
        DWPHookColl.Add DWPHook, CStr(hWnd)
        lpPrevWndProcColl.Add lpPrevWndProc, CStr(hWnd)
    End If
End Sub

Public Function WindowProc(ByVal hW As Long, ByVal uMsg As Long, ByVal wParam As Long, ByVal lParam As Long) As Long
    Dim PrevWinProc As Long
    
    On Error Resume Next 'lpPrevWndProcColl(CStr(hWnd)) may not exist
    PrevWinProc = lpPrevWndProcColl(CStr(hW))
    On Error GoTo 0
    If PrevWinProc <> 0 Then
        WindowProc = CallWindowProc(PrevWinProc, hW, uMsg, wParam, lParam)
    End If
End Function

Run the program in the VB6 IDE.
Click on the Command1 button.

A unicode string will be assigned to the Text property of the TextBoxW1 control.
In my environment (Windows XP sp3) the non-Ansi characters are displayed as question marks.

Then the same string will be correctly displayed by the unicode API MessageBoxW function.

Hope you'll be able to reproduce the problem. I suspect my system is the culprit; if that's the case you won't be able to reproduce it, I guess.

Thanks for your help!

Edit:
If I don't subclass the TextBoxW control then the problem doesn't show, but that would mostly defeat the purpose of using a Text Box. I need to hook some of the messages (mostly the keystrokes and mouse messages). I didn't include this in the reduced code because the problem happens even if I don't preprocess the messages.

[Mith]

If I don't subclass the TextBoxW control then the problem doesn't show, but that would mostly defeat the purpose of using a Text Box.

You didnt wrote anything about "subclassing the textbox" at your first question. I guess Krool uses subclassing for the TextboxW too and this leads to problems...

[jpfa]

You didnt wrote anything about "subclassing the textbox" at your first question.

I didn't mention it in my first question because I didn't know this could have anything to do with the problem. It even didn't come to my mind immediatelly after stripping down my code and posting it. It came to my mind a little later; then I tried disabling the subclassing for just the TextBoxW and found that it indeed could be related to the problem. Then I edited my post to let you know about my new findings.

I guess Krool uses subclassing for the TextboxW too and this leads to problems...

Can you confirm that guess? Is the code showing the same behavior in your computer as it shows on mine?
If so I'll assume that the control doesn't support subclassing and I'll have to take a different route (maybe using a different unicode text box).
If not, then I'd like to know what's wrong with my code, if you can tell.
But if it all works fine in your computer then I must assume that my system is to blame.

Thanks for your help.

[Arnoutdv]

The source is available in this thread:
https://www.vbforums.com/showthread....mmon-controls)

[jpfa]

That thread is huge! I wasn't able to spot the source code for TextBoxW at first sight, nor the search applet found it at specific posts(s) in the thread. Can you be more specific about which post # in the thread contains that source code?

[Erwin69]

That thread is huge! I wasn't able to spot the source code for TextBoxW at first sight, nor the search applet found it at specific posts(s) in the thread. Can you be more specific about which post # in the thread contains that source code?

I think you'll find links to the source code in post #1.

[jpfa]

I think you'll find links to the source code in post #1.

If you mean OCX2StdExe v3.2.1.zip, that code just seems to build a standard exe that will have the controls in the ocx embedded so you don't have to distribute the VBCCR17.OCX file along with your executable. I couldn't make that run because of loading errors. Some files seem to be missing. Anyway I don't need to have the ocx embedded into my exe; I just use the ocx. (I'm not distributing this program at all, it's just for my personal use).

ReadMe.docx contains instructions but not code.

[Darkbob]

Any idea how to make the MonthView control bigger? I tried changing the size the usual way by stretching the edges but it's locked at 2440 x 3030. I manually changed height and width but they changed right back. I changed the font - nothing. It seems to be stuck at one specific size. Any help would be appreciated.

[Darkbob]

Just thought I'd look at this project again since I'm having Mscomctl issues... and sadly when I download VBCCR17.OCX.RAR.ZIP and rename it to VBCCR17.OCX.RAR, WinRar reports it as damaged or incompatible and won't open it.

[fafalone]

I don't know what WinRAR's problem is, but use 7-zip. You don't even need to change the extension.

[Mith]

... and sadly when I download VBCCR17.OCX.RAR.ZIP and rename it to VBCCR17.OCX.RAR, WinRar reports it as damaged or incompatible and won't open it.

I downloaded VBCCR17.OCX.RAR.ZIP, renamed it to VBCCR17.OCX.RAR and open it with WinRAR 5.21 (64bit) without any problems. I guess your file is corrupted and you have to redownload it.

[Mith]

Any idea how to make the MonthView control bigger? I tried changing the size the usual way by stretching the edges but it's locked at 2440 x 3030.

When the MonthView control is rendered using visual styles, its size just follows system settings and you cannot change its size.
But you can disable visual styles and set a larger font to change the control size.

[Chris_G33]

Is the vbccr17 LARGEADDRESSAWARE?

32bit exes are limited to 2GB address space.
With the flag LARGEADDRESSAWARE this can be extended to 3GB (4GB?). (with editbin.exe /LARGEADDRESSAWARE myexe)
But for this it must be able to handle pointers larger than &h7FFFFFFF.

As long values are signed longs e.g.
ptr = &h7FFFFFF0 + 32
fails with overflow.
When ptr is a pointer it then should have the value &h80000000 with is in dec -1

Though to add an offset to a pointer for 3GB address space you need a e.g. subroutine to add an Offset:
Function PointerAdd(ByVal base As Long, ByVal addthis As Long) As Long
On Error Resume Next
If Err.number Then Err.Clear
base = base + addthis
If Err.number Then
base = base - &H40000000
base = base - &H40000000
base = base - &H40000000
base = base + addthis
base = base - &H40000000
End If
PointerAdd = base
End Function

With this
ptr = PointerAdd(&h7FFFFFF0, 32)
ptr will have the correct value &h80000000


When no calculating with pointers is done and only VarPtr, StrPtr, ObjPtr are used to retrieve the addresses to pass it as argument to a function all is ok.

[Krool]

Yes vbccr17 is LARGEADDRESSAWARE.
UnsignedAdd/UnsignedSub is used everywhere..

[BooksRUs]

Thanks for the cool controls!! I know it takes a lot of work to do this stuff...

I had a few of questions:
1. is it possible to add a "centered" option to LinkLabel?
2. when the user clicks on the link, do I need to do something in code, or does the control handle this automatically? (perhaps I don't have something set correctly)
3. I see there is a tool to "switch out" the OCX for the UC, but is there a tool to help automate the replacing of controls in an existing project/forms? I have lots of Labels, CommandButtons, Textboxes, etc. in my program and would like to try replacing these controls in each form, one by one, so I can test, test, test before I roll these out to my users.

Again, Thanks for all the cool stuff and advice!

[Krool]

1. is it possible to add a "centered" option to LinkLabel?
2. when the user clicks on the link, do I need to do something in code, or does the control handle this automatically? (perhaps I don't have something set correctly)

1. No. There is only left possible (by default) or right alignment via LWS_RIGHT. No centering possible.
2. Yes, you shall take action with your code on the LinkActivate event.

[BooksRUs]

1. No. There is only left possible (by default) or right alignment via LWS_RIGHT. No centering possible.
2. Yes, you shall take action with your code on the LinkActivate event.

Thanks for the info... got it working. To fake centering it, I just added a bunch of spaces at the beginning to make it look centered on the form. Very weird that no vbCenter option, but I read the other posts concerning the same issue.

[BooksRUs]

A question about LabelW... it appears that ComCtl6 Textbox (but not Label) are multiple monitor "aware", in that ToolTips will appear on the *same* monitor just below the Textbox, but not the Label.

It appears that LabelW suffers from the same behavior. Is there a way to make the LabelW tooltip to appear just below the LabelW on the SAME monitor?

Thanks!!