Drop Down Tool Windows Index

vbAccelerator Drop-Down and Popup Form Control

This 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.

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Last Updated: 21 March 2000

Creating drop-down tool windows

One feature I've been trying to achieve since I first discovered you could write API declares in VB3 (oops, showing my age here...) is a drop-down tool window you can show in response to a button or tool bar button click. These windows have been increasing in number in the Office series of tools and they are a really nice addition to a user interface.

This sample provides a neat class which allows you to convert any PictureBox or Control on a form into a drop-down tool window. As a demonstration of the technique, the class is used to implement a Word 97 table picker tool window.

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Last Updated: 13 August 1999