[RESOLVED] Modernizing the VB6 IDE

[LinkFX]

I did a new installation after passing CCleaner several times in the registry.
Even with the "Source Code Pro" fonts installed, I still have the same phenomenon of duplicating the same icon.
I forgot to specify that version 1.6 produced the same effect, but also blocked the system, that's why I had not made a screenshot because it was blocked.

I'm going to take a break and wait for installation feedback.

Please do what I suggested twice now of running the add-in in the IDE and stepping through the code. I cannot debug an issue I've never experienced and for which there are no steps to replicate.

[LinkFX]

I also think, that this might be the cause for the Icon-problems.

In the company where I work, we had similar problems (years ago),
when we still used the ClipBoard, to build-up a "Word-Document-based report"
(based on "clipboarded RTF-snippets", which the Word-ObjModel offers a method for, to integrate into a document).

We had to change that, and now use XML-based Word-Document-replacements for formatted insert-snippets.

So, "highfrequent ClipBoard-Updates" *will* definitely make problems (different ones, depending on the OS).

What reduced our problems somewhat (before the change to XML-parsing), was:
- always clearing the ClipBoard explicitely, before placing new content of the same format
- followed by "waiting for a moment" (with a Sleep + DoEvents-combination... ick ...)
- followed by placing the new content
- and the final paste-method-call on the Word-Object-model
- followed by another wait, to give Word time to process

After that, it worked a bit more reliably - but occasional "ClipBoard-messup" did still happen
(affecting the whole machine).

HTH

Olaf

Strangely when I tried clearing the clipboard in between pasting new icons I experienced issues with some icons not being added correctly. It seemed to work perfectly just copying and pasting for every button without ever clearing the clipboard in between.

[l00t3l]

So this is totally unrelated..- I just got VBforums and I have no idea where to post so can someone give me a hand?

[xiaoyao]

vfb ide Author: Yong Fang: StackHash_0a9e Baidu actually met a lot of people, my God, however, answer the question all the dick irrelevant. None of them can explain the problem.
re: You must learn to use Bing to search English
Then you have to post all the problems and solutions you are using VFP, FP in your forum, so that you can form your ecology

[xiaoyao]

It is a pity that the Chinese will not post to the official Freebasic forum, and almost 0 users of the "Yongfang" software studio forum post to reply. It is estimated that almost no one on the freebasic official website forum knows that there is vfb (visual freebasic)

[camomille]

It is a pity that the Chinese will not post to the official Freebasic forum, and almost 0 users of the "Yongfang" software studio forum post to reply. It is estimated that almost no one on the freebasic official website forum knows that there is vfb (visual freebasic)

You saw wrong ,see posts camomille:

https://www.freebasic.net/forum/view...p?f=17&t=28347
https://www.freebasic.net/forum/view...28347&start=15

But impossible to post an image on this forum , just a link

and here Yong Fang Chinese forum (at the bottom of the page)

http://www.yfvb.com/soft-48.htm

On the FreeBasic forum, they consider VFB5 like to VB6 and on VBFORUM the opposite like to Freebasic, while freebasic is not a language but a compiler, this is why I tested by myself and I can say that 'we can write VB6 code in the VFB5 IDE practically without difference with VB6 (I gave above the main differences which are minimal).
I have no interest in VFB5, it is only out of curiosity if I talk about him here, it can tempt experimenters like me but it may not exist anymore
For my part, I continue every day to translate the Chinese texts partly into English and the messages in French, unfortunately as I cannot have contact with the Chinese forum, I keep them for me.

[loquat]

I'm not sure about this error. It only seems to happen in Chinese operating systems. Does it prevent VB6 from launching or break things in any way?

yes this problem leads to failure starting of vb6.exe

[LinkFX]

yes this problem leads to failure starting of vb6.exe

Does it happen if you patch the English binaries from the English SP6 (with the correct patches for those files)?

[sergeos]

I have suggestions:
a) please add a window for working with git
b) hotkeys for commenting/uncomment the highlighted block (or line where is cursor) [Ctrl+K, C] [Ctrl+K, U] like in popular ide and mssms, mostly needed
c) ...
ideas the whole railway carriage )

[LinkFX]

I have suggestions:
a) please add a window for working with git
b) hotkeys for commenting/uncomment the highlighted block (or line where is cursor) [Ctrl+K, C] [Ctrl+K, U] like in popular ide and mssms, mostly needed
c) ...
ideas the whole railway carriage )

B) is already a feature of many of the addins in the recommended list, most notably MZ-Tools

A) native git integration would be very useful indeed but would be better done as a separate add-in altogether.

[jedifuk]

i am sorry, i just heard this VBF5, I just learnt about VB6 with modernized IDE,
Can someone make comparison among VB6, VBF5 dan VB6 with modernized IDE, maybe table, since I am working on application using VB6 standard, perhaps I can switch to new IDE , will it make the coding more convenient ? any side effect ? I believe one day, these suhus/masters in this forum able to make own VB6 64bit,

[Episcopal]

I believe one day, these suhus/masters in this forum able to make own VB6 64bit

It would be nice .... but I have my doubts ...

[jedifuk]

It would be nice .... but I have my doubts ...

yeah, because the programmer VB6 nowadays would be considered as "Dinosaurs" compared to what happened to programming todays

[camomille]

i am sorry, i just heard this VBF5, I just learnt about VB6 with modernized IDE,
Can someone make comparison among VB6, VBF5 dan VB6 with modernized IDE, maybe table, since I am working on application using VB6 standard, perhaps I can switch to new IDE , will it make the coding more convenient ? any side effect ? I believe one day, these suhus/masters in this forum able to make own VB6 64bit,

If you talk about VFB5 (not VBF5) see my posts 86/94/109/111 for the differences with VB6

[Maddis]

Well, I've been experimenting with trying to get a good dark theme for the IDE. Here are some preview screenshots, but there's some things that will have to be tweaked through the ModernVB add-in code if possible, such as some fonts rendering black always instead of whatever the system's default font color for the theme is using. Some of the icons also don't look as great since VB doesn't support transparency and they were clearly designed with light aliased borders.





I also want to try and get that functionality for hiding the panels as you suggested, notice the toolbar on the right in the screenshots above. I could probably get the add-in to toggle them easily enough, but what I'd really like to do is intercept the actual native event handler in the IDE for those buttons and have them toggle between hiding and showing the panels (they only ever show by default). That way both the menu and main toolbar buttons for those panels would also work instead of only the toolbar on the right doing it. I've yet to give that a shot though.

This is brilliant. Took a while to set up. I had to run the vb6.exe as administrator otherwise I would encounter a weird Sever Error.

Any chance of sharing this dark theme for the IDE? My eyes are very sensitive due to an operation I had a few years ago, and always prefer to code in full dark mode.

Thanks and amazing work!

[Maddis]

Well, I've been experimenting with trying to get a good dark theme for the IDE. Here are some preview screenshots, but there's some things that will have to be tweaked through the ModernVB add-in code if possible, such as some fonts rendering black always instead of whatever the system's default font color for the theme is using. Some of the icons also don't look as great since VB doesn't support transparency and they were clearly designed with light aliased borders.





I also want to try and get that functionality for hiding the panels as you suggested, notice the toolbar on the right in the screenshots above. I could probably get the add-in to toggle them easily enough, but what I'd really like to do is intercept the actual native event handler in the IDE for those buttons and have them toggle between hiding and showing the panels (they only ever show by default). That way both the menu and main toolbar buttons for those panels would also work instead of only the toolbar on the right doing it. I've yet to give that a shot though.

Do you have a link for this dark theme that I can use?

Thanks
Maddis

[dilettante]

You can always use the PC "high contrast" color setting:

You might want to tweak your VB6 colors though.

[Eduardo-]

In Windows 10 you can also use the Magnifier app to invert all the colors.
Windows key++
Control+Alt+F
Control+Alt+I

Windows key and + launches the Magnifier tool.
Control+Alt+F sets the app to full screen mode
Control+Alt+I inverts the colors

[Maddis]

Thanks for the suggestions. I am using this already, but the modded version that linkFX looks was cooler. Hopefully he will reply to me with link.

[BitSprocket]

Great stuff - best in show! However, a small problem is preventing me from using it. I have installed SP6 with the cumulative update and I've patched the three files as required, however, when I try to use the patched vb6.exe, I get the following error:
Attachment 179180

When I replace vb6.exe with the original from the sp, the ide loads okay and everything seems alright but not sure how stable it is - I haven't done any extensive work with it. The splash screen for this addin shows and the toolbars appear (and they seem to work okay) but the file sizes for vb6.exe sp6 and vb6.exe for this addin are vastly different. Is this because I've used the CU referenced above?

[xiaoyao]

vb7=Freebasic?
An IDE designed by a programmer in China
Visual FreeBasic,but English Version Have More Bugs,IF Your Chinese is good,it's best for you!
suport 64 bit,CreatThread,standard dll.
http://www.yfvb.com/soft-48.htm

[yereverluvinuncleber]

Surprisingly enough, my Chinese is rather poor. I wonder this is an unusual trait for a typical Englishman?

[SCSS]

good morning. there is a release for VB6 Enterprise Italian language? thanks and congratulations for the excellent modernVB project. VisualBasic 6 forever.

[imotion]

hi modernizers , I think this issue wasnt solved, when references and components windows are resized bigger by touching vb6ide.dll , in references it is ok but in components window the component name path remains short, a function shorts the path, well here is the fix, it have to be changed in vb6.exe

note that the adresses are from olly not from hex editor, but can be easily find

00547724 |. 75 03
00547726 |. 8B46 08
00547729 |> 50
0054772A |. 8D85 FCFEFFFF
00547730 |. 50
00547731 |. FF15 78134000
00547737 |. 8D85 FCFEFFFF
0054773D |. 6A 28 <---- change this to 6A FF, means to change 40 to 255 charaters for path
0054773F |. 50
00547740 |. E8
00547741 |. 91
00547742 |. 5A
00547743 |. F0
00547744 |. FF
00547745 |. FF76 04
00547748 |. 8B35 90164000
0054774E |. 68 CE140000
00547753 |. FF75 08
00547756 |. FFD6
00547758 |. 8D85 FCFEFFFF
0054775E |. 50
0054775F |. 68 CF140000
00547764 |. FF75 08
00547767 |. FFD6
00547769 \.^EB A5

[imotion]

also is posible to make copyable the paths in components and reference dialogs, needs to change the property of path field from "STATIC" to "EDIT", it can be done easily with Resourcehacker

I also would like to ask anything, does anybody knows how are changed and added icons in the IDE, its strange seems a change in registry, how it works , is there an easy way to customize and edit that

[xiaoyao]

I am the Chinese version of VB6, but unfortunately I cannot compile and generate this plug-in DLL (ADDIN)

[shagratt]

Hi guys! I created another AddIn to improve the usability of the VB6 IDE and make it feel more modern:

https://www.vbforums.com/showthread....-Hotkeys-v0-8c

Still in beta, and in its current state does not support high dpi Ide, but eventually I will add it.

[lizanodiaz]

Mister, LinkFX: What happened with the continuity of continuing to modernize the VB6 ide? he was going on the right track and making great strides

[webbiz]

I'm curious. Has a stable modernizer for the VB6 IDE been settled on?

Lots of postings and a bit overwhelmed with what is considered finalized and working well.

I downloaded the ModernVB (1.7) and was following the instructions, but it gave me errors along the way so I stopped. Don't want to mess up my development setup.

[Darkbob]

About the only update I'd love to see is the ability to change the font size of the IDE menus. I can change the font for the code windows but I can hardly read the menu's because they are so small.

[LinkFX]

I'm curious. Has a stable modernizer for the VB6 IDE been settled on?

Lots of postings and a bit overwhelmed with what is considered finalized and working well.

I downloaded the ModernVB (1.7) and was following the instructions, but it gave me errors along the way so I stopped. Don't want to mess up my development setup.

I've not been seriously into VB for a few years now though I still occasionally use it for personal projects. As far as I can tell the ModernVB addin is essentially complete.

Together with the list of recommended plugins and tweaks I included in the readme for the project and a bunch of custom controls developed by this community I think VB6 is as modernized as it can be without a full rewrite of a the language for modern operating systems (of which I've seen many attempts but none that came to fruition, the last of which being TwinBasic).

What more would you ask of a modern iteration of VB6?

[LinkFX]

About the only update I'd love to see is the ability to change the font size of the IDE menus. I can change the font for the code windows but I can hardly read the menu's because they are so small.

Change the DPI for your monitor or the font scaling in windows settings and that should apply to the IDE as a whole as well.

[fafalone]

twinBASIC is extremely far along now and still being actively developed... new versions nearly daily. All my major programs from here run in it, and I've made x64 compatible versions of most of them. While there's still some missing big-ticket items and a lot of bugs, I can't see saying it won't come to fruition. Not to mention the extensive list of new language features already implemented too.

See my GitHub repo for a sampling of all the complex apps tB can already run, like my ucShellBrowse control, ETW kernel logger file activity monitor, cTaskDialog, Carles PV's Lemmings, the basicNES Nintendo emulator...

It's a monumental undertaking and we all wish it would get to 100% faster, but the pace is actually very good considering it's a single-developer project (was? or for now? Wayne was looking to hire someone to help a while back)

[lizanodiaz]

Good morning Mr. LinkFX , the vb6 modern exe, when dragging the tools (button, textbox, etc.). produces a gap or distortion at the time of drawing on the form.
What would be the solution?

[avidichard]

Still 2025 and this is still Super Usefull and works like a charm!

I follow the install instructions from here on Windows 11.

It would have just been fun to see dark mode support and a built-in Mouse Wheel function instead of going for another 3rd party. I use this one here which does not require an EXE continuously running in the background just the registration of the DLL with regsvr32 as admin.

Good Job if you are still reading comments here!!!

[joaquim]

some questions:
1 - added the number lines?
2 - added the AutoRedraw to true and ScaleMode to Pixels?
3 - can i add icon and description on Templates\Projects?(i mean the project types list)
4 - can i use no dark theme?

[SteveM22]

I do not like dark themes ! The brightness of white background makes my eye pupils contract (miosis) improving my vision sharpness. Black on white is best contrast for me.