Getting the ball rolling. Which VB6 projects are you working on?

[yereverluvinuncleber]

Slow going here, lots to do.



Adding wind icon to the pictorial weather gauge, all based upon METAR data.

[yereverluvinuncleber]

Adding balloon tooltips to VB6 combobox controls using Elroy's balloon tooltips and subclassing. Retroactively adding newer functionality to my older VB6 desktop 'trinkets'.

[VanGoghGaming]

You don't need any subclassing to attach balloon tooltips, they work automatically when attached to a control.

[yereverluvinuncleber]

Not the comboboxes, when using Elroy's balloon tooltips. They work on everything else but the comboboxes. A little subclassing is required to make them operate on comboboxes unless of course Elroy has a new version that fixes that.

[VanGoghGaming]

Have you checked out this thread? There's a ComboBox in the screenshot as well and it displays the balloon tooltip just like any other control.

[yereverluvinuncleber]

Have you checked out this thread? There's a ComboBox in the screenshot as well and it displays the balloon tooltip just like any other control.

Oh yes, I saw yours awhile ago and I had planned to dig in and have a look but never quite got around to it. I have about 20 or more VB6 programs that have balloon tooltips using Elroy's older tooltip code and I know where I am with those. If I make a major /minor change in the way my progs operate then I 'have' to go back and update all of them, so I stick with what I know for the moment, less work...

[yereverluvinuncleber]

Van, just raised a feature request for TwinBasic to allow TB comboboxes to have MOUSEMOVE and other similar events captured. Faf. responded and stated it might be a straight-forward addition if Wayne OKs it. So, no need for subclassing nor any other shennanigans.

[VanGoghGaming]

You do not need MouseMove for balloon tooltips... See link above.

[yereverluvinuncleber]

You mean the manifest?

[VanGoghGaming]

I mean the MouseMove event, it is not necessary for balloon tooltips. They know to show automatically when the mouse cursor is over the control without writing code specifically in the MouseMove event. That's why they also work for ComboBoxes which don't expose such an event.

[yereverluvinuncleber]

I'll give it some thought a little later, thankyou.

[yereverluvinuncleber]

Working on a new VB6 gauge, a conversion of my UBoat stopwatch Konfabulator widget. Just finished the first pass of migration, a few minor bugs to fix.

[yereverluvinuncleber]

Testing

[Dan_W]

As a side (side) project, I've been trying to recreate the 'classic' solitaire that used to ship with Windows. I've got the cards on a sprite sheet which I store in code as base64, and regenerate the full image and carve up the individual cards at runtime.

I've also added a custom statusbar at the bottom, but am still working out the bugs on that.

[yereverluvinuncleber]

Love it! We need more of these ex-XP utilities. Eventually we can replace the upper strata in Windows with VB6 components and utilities!

Not quite sure why I'd want that but it sounds fun.

[fafalone]

I've got 64bit compatible declares for the original cards.dll that solitaire etc used in WinDevLib

[Dan_W]

Really? I didn't think cards32.dll came in 64bit. There is like a dozen or so functions, no? Would've saved me a little bit of time had I known that there was one...

That's actually how this project started - as a drop-in class that emulated the DLL. Not sure how I'm going to tackle the animation side of things, but it's been a fun project. I've finally managed to sort out how to move all the cards in one go, so I'm happy.

[fafalone]

I didn't think it did either. Wasted a bunch of time trying to compile it for x64... was mystifying why it wouldn't.

But XP 64bit edition came with a 64bit version.

Public Enum CardsResourceIds
    IDACLUBS = 1
    ID2CLUBS = 2
    ID3CLUBS = 3
    ID4CLUBS = 4
    ID5CLUBS = 5
    ID6CLUBS = 6
    ID7CLUBS = 7
    ID8CLUBS = 8
    ID9CLUBS = 9
    IDTCLUBS = 10
    IDJCLUBS = 11
    IDQCLUBS = 12
    IDKCLUBS = 13
    IDADIAMONDS = 14
    ID2DIAMONDS = 15
    ID3DIAMONDS = 16
    ID4DIAMONDS = 17
    ID5DIAMONDS = 18
    ID6DIAMONDS = 19
    ID7DIAMONDS = 20
    ID8DIAMONDS = 21
    ID9DIAMONDS = 22
    IDTDIAMONDS = 23
    IDJDIAMONDS = 24
    IDQDIAMONDS = 25
    IDKDIAMONDS = 26
    IDAHEARTS = 27
    ID2HEARTS = 28
    ID3HEARTS = 29
    ID4HEARTS = 30
    ID5HEARTS = 31
    ID6HEARTS = 32
    ID7HEARTS = 33
    ID8HEARTS = 34
    ID9HEARTS = 35
    IDTHEARTS = 36
    IDJHEARTS = 37
    IDQHEARTS = 38
    IDKHEARTS = 39
    IDASPADES = 40
    ID2SPADES = 41
    ID3SPADES = 42
    ID4SPADES = 43
    ID5SPADES = 44
    ID6SPADES = 45
    ID7SPADES = 46
    ID8SPADES = 47
    ID9SPADES = 48
    IDTSPADES = 49
    IDJSPADES = 50
    IDQSPADES = 51
    IDKSPADES = 52
    IDGHOST = 53
    IDFACEDOWN1 = 54
    IDFACEDOWN2 = 55
    IDFACEDOWN3 = 56
    IDFACEDOWN4 = 57
    IDFACEDOWN5 = 58
    IDFACEDOWN6 = 59
    IDFACEDOWN7 = 60
    IDFACEDOWN8 = 61
    IDFACEDOWN9 = 62
    IDFACEDOWN10 = 63
    IDFACEDOWN11 = 64
    IDFACEDOWN12 = 65
    IDFACEDOWNFIRST = IDFACEDOWN1
    IDFACEDOWNLAST = IDFACEDOWN12
End Enum
Public Enum CardsDllConsts
    CARDS_FACEUP = 0
    CARDS_FACEDOWN = 1 /* for compatibility with old apps, use IDFACEDOWNFIRST..IDFACEDOWNLAST */
    CARDS_HLITE = 2
    CARDS_GHOST = 3
    CARDS_REMOVE = 4
    CARDS_INVISIBLEGHOST = 5
    CARDS_DECKX = 6
    CARDS_DECKO = 7
End Enum

 
Public Declare PtrSafe Function cdtInit Lib "cards.dll" (pdxCard As Long, pdyCard As Long) As BOOL
Public Declare PtrSafe Function cdtDrawExt Lib "cards.dll" (ByVal hdc As LongPtr, ByVal x As Long, ByVal y As Long, ByVal dx As Long, ByVal dy As Long, ByVal cd As CardsResourceIds, ByVal mode As CardsDllConsts, ByVal rgbBgnd As Long) As BOOL
Public Declare PtrSafe Function cdtDraw Lib "cards.dll" (ByVal hdc As LongPtr, ByVal x As Long, ByVal y As Long, ByVal cd As CardsResourceIds, ByVal mode As CardsDllConsts, ByVal rgbBgnd As Long) As BOOL
Public Declare PtrSafe Function cdtAnimate Lib "cards.dll" (ByVal hdc As LongPtr, ByVal cd As CardsResourceIds, ByVal x As Long, ByVal y As Long, ByVal ispr As Long) As BOOL
Public Declare PtrSafe Sub cdtTerm Lib "cards.dll" ()

[Dan_W]

Well am slowly making progress. Just need to do the winner bouncing card effect thingy, and I think that's pretty much it (besides a top scores record and select-your-card-design option)



Thank you, Fafalone, for luring me down that rabbit hole. I managed to find a 64bit DLL and it worked as advertised. Not easy to find though. Recreating the DLL would be a good TwinBasic project, don't you think? I assume it's possible to store the bitmaps in the DLL?

[VanGoghGaming]

You don't actually need the DLLs (either 32-bit or 64-bit), they expose only a handful of functions of questionable usefulness. The bitmaps themselves are what you want and you can download them all from this page. Then you could convert them to PNG and store them as resources in your own app.

[Dan_W]

You don't actually need the DLLs (either 32-bit or 64-bit), they expose only a handful of functions of questionable usefulness. The bitmaps themselves are what you want and you can download them all from this page. Then you could convert them to PNG and store them as resources in your own app.

That's exactly what I did!
I didn't learn that there was even a 64bit version of the DLL until yestrday. As you say, I converted the individual bitmaps into a Single PNG file (7 rows x 13 columns) and then again into base64. That single string clocks in at around 500 lines of code.

[fafalone]

The source for the DLLs and Solitaire is in the Windows source leaks, if you want to cheat

(and yes, for all project types twinBASIC can natively handle all resource types, not just a small subset like VB6, minus some compatibility edge cases with certain resources where the same types of resources are given the same id but different LCID language code)

[VanGoghGaming]

On another note, I've been playing around some more with XAML Islands in VB6 and testing different controls. There's a lot of new information to absorb about .NET concepts I've never heard of before which I need to adapt into VB6.

Here's a demo window with an assortment of various controls thrown on it: AutoSuggestBox, ListView, ColorPicker, TextBox, ComboBox, Button:



There are no forms in this project, everything takes place in Sub Main and the XAML layout is loaded from resources:

Private Sub Main()
Dim DesktopWindowXamlSourceNative2 As IDesktopWindowXamlSourceNative2, Message As MSG
    With New cMainWindow
        If .IsInitialized Then
            If .CreateWindow(App.Title, 800, 800) Then
                Set DesktopWindowXamlSourceNative2 = .DesktopWindowXamlSource
                .LoadXaml StrConv(LoadResData(102, "CUSTOM"), vbUnicode)
                While GetMessageW(Message, vbNullPtr, 0, 0) ' Enter the message loop
                    If DesktopWindowXamlSourceNative2.PreTranslateMessage(Message) = 0 Then
                        TranslateMessage Message: DispatchMessageW Message
                    End If
                Wend
            End If
        End If
    End With
End Sub

Public Function WndProc(ByVal hWnd As LongPtr, ByVal uMsg As Long, ByVal wParam As LongPtr, ByVal lParam As LongPtr) As LongPtr
    Select Case uMsg
        Case WM_DESTROY: PostQuitMessage ERROR_SUCCESS
    End Select
    WndProc = DefWindowProcW(hWnd, uMsg, wParam, lParam)
End Function

All controls come already packed full of modern features, for example the textboxes contain Proofing tools by default. Also the theme can be toggled seamlessly between Light and Dark. This screenshot shows the theme change for the whole window but it can also be changed on a "per control" basis:

[fafalone]

If you've ever been curious about using Cairo without vbRichClient, I posted a simple proof of concept for using a cairo DLL directly.

https://www.vbforums.com/showthread....=1#post5680174

tB obviously, but would take 30s to switch to VB6.

[-Franky-]

@VanGoghGaming: XAML controls in conjunction with the "Windows App SDK" would be the next step. However, I'm afraid that the "Windows App SDK" is too complicated for VB6, since it's actually only intended for .NET. First, you need to install the "Windows App SDK" in 32-bit and/or 64-bit versions. For VB6, you need to copy the installed files of the "Windows App SDK" from the "C:\Program Files\WindowsApps" folder, because some winmd files are required there. Then you need to download the NuGet package "microsoft.windowsappsdk.[version number]" and unpack it with 7-Zip, for example, and copy the DLL "Microsoft.WindowsAppRuntime.Bootstrap.dll" into the VB6 project folder. The unpacked NuGet package also contains some winmd files that must be extracted using the .NET tool "winmdidl.exe" to access the included idl files. The "Windows App SDK" can then be initialized and used via the MddBootstrapInitialize API of Microsoft.WindowsAppRuntime.Bootstrap.dll. All of this together is simply too complicated.

[yereverluvinuncleber]

VG.

I'm intrigued by XAML Islands and using it within VB6. I like where you are going with it. A quick question. I have used XML and other describing languages to create objects, buttons, controls &c but as always for any XML type UI framework it can be quite painful laying out complicated forms. I always think that for a UI Framework to be usable in the VB6 world there needs to be some attempt at a UI designer. Is there any such extant designer available that can be used for layout? Has anyone created such a useful tool that takes the chore out of layout hand-crafting?

[-Franky-]

As far as I know, there is no XAML designer for VB6 yet. A web-based XAML designer might suffice: https://xaml.io/ Although I don't know if the generated XAML string is compatible with XAML Islands. There are four ways to create XAML controls in VB6.


1. Via the Windows App SDK
2. Via a XAML string
3. Via XamlDirect classes/interfaces
4. Via the usual XAML classes/interfaces


Everything runs via XAML Islands.

[VanGoghGaming]

So far I've been using the XAML string but it has quite a few limitations that are not so obvious at first. For example it failed to create the ColorPicker control you see in the screenshot above. Fortunately all controls can be created in code at runtime by calling their respective Factory method, so it was just a matter of creating the ColorPicker object and then adding it to the StackPanel's "Children" collection and presto, it popped up on screen. The same can be done with Bindings.

I haven't installed the "Windows App SDK" yet but from what you're saying it does sound quite off-putting. I thought it would just be a collection of IDL files just like the current Windows SDK is...

[yereverluvinuncleber]

How good would it be to have a UI forms designer where you could specify the UI framework and it would then generate a form using XAML Islands, RC6/Cairo based widgets or native VB6 controls?
The one thing that I feel cripples RC6 design is the lack of a forms designer. I have a rich multi-tab form with 250+ controls and the laborious placement of each via code means that regardless of the UI framework being used for the main interface, I will always revert back to a VB6 form.

[VanGoghGaming]

I think XAML design requires to detach yourself from the VB6 mindset where you obsess over exact pixel placement of each control. XAML controls are much more "loose" with their placement but still confined to the container in which they reside. This works very well with resizing and multiple monitors with different resolutions. It's pretty much exactly like web design. There have been many attempts at WYSIWYG web designers but all of them pretty short-lived, it just doesn't work as well as it should.

[-Franky-]

So far I've been using the XAML string but it has quite a few limitations that are not so obvious at first. For example it failed to create the ColorPicker control you see in the screenshot above.

Hmm, it works perfectly fine for me with a XAML string.

            xaml = "<Grid xmlns='http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation' " & _
                       "xmlns:x='http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml' " & _
                       "xmlns:d='http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/blend/2008' " & _
                       "xmlns:mc='http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006' " & _
                       "mc:Ignorable='d'>" & _
                       "<StackPanel x:Name='StackPanel' Margin='5,5,5,5' BorderThickness='2,2,2,2' BorderBrush='Red' Background='#FFF8F8F8' CornerRadius='10,10,10,10'>" & _
                            "<ColorPicker x:Name='ColorPicker1' HorizontalAlignment='Left' Height='700' Margin='15,15,15,15' VerticalAlignment='Top' Width='200'/>" & _
                        "</StackPanel>" & _
                    "</Grid>"

I haven't installed the "Windows App SDK" yet but from what you're saying it does sound quite off-putting. I thought it would just be a collection of IDL files just like the current Windows SDK is...

For .NET, only the "Windows App SDK" and the corresponding NuGet package for the .NET project need to be installed. Winmd files are something like TLBs for VB6.

[yereverluvinuncleber]

I think XAML design requires to detach yourself from the VB6 mindset where you obsess over exact pixel placement of each control. XAML controls are much more "loose" with their placement but still confined to the container in which they reside. This works very well with resizing and multiple monitors with different resolutions. It's pretty much exactly like web design. There have been many attempts at WYSIWYG web designers but all of them pretty short-lived, it just doesn't work as well as it should.

I hear what you are saying but I've been there and done that and it is very limiting in comparison to what we experience already daily in VB6 and TB. If you want RAD people to adopt technologies in a RAD environment there needs to be something that approximates to a designer for the UI framework. Otherwise, it limits adoption. Clever, but painful to use? I have experience.

[yereverluvinuncleber]

I am converting all my gauges to beta stage being reasonably happy with their operation and coding. Working my way through each one in turn bringing them up to standard.



Do you retrospectively upgrade your older code to your current knowledge and standards with a current implementation that reflects your current knowledge or do you leave old code to stew in its poor state?

[Erwin69]

When working on new releases, updating code to new knowledge and standards as well as code-cleanup is part of the project.

Sometimes simple things as changing a For iCounter = 1 to myCollection.Count to For Each myObject in myCollection.Count. Or defining global constants instead of commenting each time to know what the code means. Like If myObject.Status = 1 Then to If myObject.Status = STATUS_ACTIVE Then.

Other times things like changing a Sub to a Function so that it can return codes that can be used in error-handling, or adding an additional parameter so that the same function can be used for more situations, instead of creating a new sub/function that is mostly the same as the existing one.

At times this is also driven by new functionality. E.g. when I introduced batch processing in one of the apps, I couldn't use the code for processing a single "document" as-is, since if something went wrong, it would show a messagebox with an error message. You obviously don't want that to happen in the middle of a batch process...

[yereverluvinuncleber]

Well that's good. I'm pleased to know that others do the same.

I tend to be a bit anal bringing my code up to scratch but its not as if my coding standards are particularly high in any case so I am unsure why I worry about it - but I do.

If myObject.Status = STATUS_ACTIVE Then[/COLOR].

I like that, I do a bit of that here and there, for sure but possibly not all the time!

I have a template which forms the basis for all new programs of the same type from that point forward, the trouble is my template soon becomes stuck in the past as I learn new methods and new standards. It then soon becomes rather out of date. I am too focussed on my current project to want to retro-modify 20 or so programs to a new and improved standard. I tend to fret behind the scenes at the increasingly poor code in my creations until I obtain the mojo/courage to attack them and update them.

Like many here I am not good at admin. tasks, I prefer the creative ones.

A positive side effect of is that when I do get around to finally doing it, each program receives a raft of improvements.

[fafalone]

I try to avoid touching things that are working well unless there's meaningful improvement in functionality or stability to be had. Not as worried about code quality unless it's a work project.

[Erwin69]

Well, mine are work projects, so the focus may be a bit different, but I agree with the principle that if it ain't broken, it doesn't need fixing.

One of the challenges I've been facing is that there is more and more code shared between the different apps, and while I try my best to avoid code duplication, it has been unavoidable at times. While the apps probably could convert as-is to tB, I plan to do a redesign to eliminate all duplication and prepare various components for future approaches like the batch processing I mentioned, and multi-thread opportunities.

One of the fun things of running my own company for me is the wide variety of things I do. Like Bert I am not a big fan of admin, though sending out invoices and seeing them being paid does give a good feeling! Chasing clients to pay or business partners to participate in beta-testing is a pain, but then helping sales to close deals, negotiate new partnerships, or even solve customer problems balances it out. And with clients and partners in 20+ countries, there is also the interesting aspect of cultural differences. Never a dull moment!

[yereverluvinuncleber]

One of the fun things of running my own company for me is the wide variety of things I do. Like Bert I am not a big fan of admin, though sending out invoices and seeing them being paid does give a good feeling! Chasing clients to pay or business partners to participate in beta-testing is a pain, but then helping sales to close deals, negotiate new partnerships, or even solve customer problems balances it out. And with clients and partners in 20+ countries, there is also the interesting aspect of cultural differences. Never a dull moment!

Sounds great - I envy you!

[fafalone]

Coming very soon... easily display color fonts (i.e. color emojis) in labels in tB, VB6, Office UserForms, etc. With enhancements including angled text, gradients, font effects like underline limited to a specific range, several word wrap options, and more.

[yereverluvinuncleber]

Crikey!