Highlights Index
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Updated: vbAccelerator Toolbar and CoolMenu Control v3.5This control allows you to create modern UIs like Internet Explorer or Word with full colour-depth toolbars, CoolMenus, resizable and movable toolbar bands, controls in the toolbar and much more. It works with standard forms and MDI forms and also allows you to create Outlook-style MDI applications by hiding the MDI-child window control buttons. Last Updated: 11 May 2003 |
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Updated: vbAccelerator NeoCaption Component v2.0This code sample provides a DLL you can use right away to radically modify the non-client area of a form, similar to the sort of customisation provided by NeoPlanet and WindowBlinds. And, since the full source code is available, you get the chance to build your customised client area derivatives. Sounds like fun? It is! Last Updated: 21 February 2002 |
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New: vbAccelerator Drop-Down and Popup Form ControlThis control allows you to use any form as a drop-down window, and optionally to drag the form off and float it over the form. The form behaves just like the drop-down windows in Office, albeit you cannot currently dock them (yet!) The code includes a VB titlebar modifier class which ensures that any owned forms with the WS_EX_TOOLWINDOW style (i.e. VB WindowStyles 4 and 5) shown in a VB app do not take focus away from the owner form's titlebar - and the form also stays active in the TaskBar too. This functionality is completely generic and works regardless of how many taskbar forms you have in your app. Last Updated: 21 March 2000 |
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Updated: .NET Button ListBar ControlThe Button ListBar control provides an emulation of the ListBar provided in the Windows Add/Remove Programs window. Under XP it uses the UxTheme API to draw parts of the toolbar, and degrades to use standard GDI drawing calls when used on earlier OS versions. Both C# and VB.NET versions of the same code are provided. Last Updated: 23 January 2004 |
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Updated: SysTray from .NETThe .NET Framework includes a NotifyIcon component but this unfortunately doesn't support InfoTip (balloon) notification; at least, not in v1.0 of the Framework. This sample provides an equivalent class which uses the Shell code directly to allow all the tooltip facilities to be used. Last Updated: 1 November 2003 |
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Updated: Subclassing Without The CrashesPrior to VB5, it was impossible to subclass a control without relying on a proprietary custom control. This greatly restricted what you could do if you wanted to play around with some of the neater customisation features - creating a new control was completely out, finding out in detail what was going on with menus was impossible and so on. The introduction of the AddressOf operator to VB5 now allows you to subclass, although it is not nearly as simple as it ought to be. The SSubTmr component is a more stable and consistent way of working with subclassing, without some of the attendent difficulties. You can either use it as an external DLL to provide, or by including one module and one interface class, you can compile it directly into your application once you are happy the subclassing is working. SSubTmr is the basis for most of the VB controls on this site. The component itself mostly uses the SubTimer.DLL component code from Bruce McKinney's excellent "Hardcore Visual Basic" book, however it has a couple of very useful enhancements described in this article. Last Updated: 26 January 2003 |
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Updated: vbAccelerator S-Grid ControlThe SGrid control is an all-VB grid which can emulate the Outlook messages list, including grouping of messages and message preview. The highly optimised display code makes this grid draw faster than FlexGrid and other VB grids even while it allows more sophisticated displays to be set up. It is also a good replacement for a ListView in report mode. Last Updated: 1 November 1999 |
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Updated: High Resolution Multimedia TimerThe standard timer supplied with VB is great for most tasks, but the frequency it updates at isn't acceptable for high-performance multimedia. In audio applications the system must be capable of firing audio events with a 1ms resolution, otherwise the ear will be able to discern the timing inaccuracy. This article presents a small, hardcore multimedia timer capable of 1ms resolution in VB code. Last Updated: 21 November 2002 |
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New: Alpha DIBSectionsThis article provides an enhanced DIBSection class which allows you to create and draw images with per-pixel alpha. The alpha component of a pixel allows you to determine how transparent you would like a pixel to be. This concept is being increasingly used in the Windows UI to enhance the user experience with accurately blended drop-shadows and partially transparent objects. Note that system alpha-blending is not available on Win95 or NT. If you want to display an alpha-image on these systems you have use your own code routine to implement AlphaBlend. Sample code is provided to do this. Last Updated: 13 January 2003 |
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Updated: vbAccelerator ListView ControlThis control provides an alternative to the VB ListView control and adds support for almost all of the new ComCtl32.DLL v6.0 features that are missing from the VB version: ListView grouping, Tile view with configurable sub-items, Multiple Work Areas and more. Last Updated: 20 June 2003 |
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