Changing Window's Standard Colours

[pmccorm]

Hi all,

I'm writting a VB(6) application and want to change the boring Windows grey colour for my controls:

SSTab, Scroll bars, buttons etc...

I've heard on a API call but have no clues what it is or how to use it.

Any help?

Cheers, Paul

[jim mcnamara]

Start with this snippet

Private Declare Function SetSysColors Lib "user32" (ByVal nChanges As Long, lpSysColor As Long, lpColorValues As Long) As Long
Private Declare Function GetSysColor Lib "user32" (ByVal nIndex As Long) As Long
Const COLOR_SCROLLBAR = 0 'The Scrollbar colour
Const COLOR_BACKGROUND = 1 'Colour of the background with no wallpaper
Const COLOR_ACTIVECAPTION = 2 'Caption of Active Window
Const COLOR_INACTIVECAPTION = 3 'Caption of Inactive window
Const COLOR_MENU = 4 'Menu
Const COLOR_WINDOW = 5 'Windows background
Const COLOR_WINDOWFRAME = 6 'Window frame
Const COLOR_MENUTEXT = 7 'Window Text
Const COLOR_WINDOWTEXT = 8 '3D dark shadow (Win95)
Const COLOR_CAPTIONTEXT = 9 'Text in window caption
Const COLOR_ACTIVEBORDER = 10 'Border of active window
Const COLOR_INACTIVEBORDER = 11 'Border of inactive window
Const COLOR_APPWORKSPACE = 12 'Background of MDI desktop
Const COLOR_HIGHLIGHT = 13 'Selected item background
Const COLOR_HIGHLIGHTTEXT = 14 'Selected menu item
Const COLOR_BTNFACE = 15 'Button
Const COLOR_BTNSHADOW = 16 '3D shading of button
Const COLOR_GRAYTEXT = 17 'Grey text, of zero if dithering is used.
Const COLOR_BTNTEXT = 18 'Button text
Const COLOR_INACTIVECAPTIONTEXT = 19 'Text of inactive window
Const COLOR_BTNHIGHLIGHT = 20 '3D highlight of button
Const COLOR_2NDACTIVECAPTION = 27 'Win98 only: 2nd active window color
Const COLOR_2NDINACTIVECAPTION = 28 'Win98 only: 2nd inactive window color
Private Sub Form_Load()
    'KPD-Team 1998
    'URL: http://www.allapi.net/
    'E-Mail: [email protected]
    'Get the caption's active color
    col& = GetSysColor(COLOR_ACTIVECAPTION)
    'Change the active caption's color to red
    t& = SetSysColors(1, COLOR_ACTIVECAPTION, RGB(255, 0, 0))
    MsgBox "The old title bar color was" + Str$(col&) + " and is now" + Str$(GetSysColor(COLOR_ACTIVECAPTION))
End Sub