This example project features a dockable toolbar that can be completely customized by the program user.  The program user can:

• invoke the Windows Customize Toolbar dialog either by double-clicking in an unused portion of the toolbar or by using a menu pick.
• shift-drag buttons within or off of the toolbar.
• save/restore the user's custom toolbar setup.
• revert the toolbar to a programmer-defined default layout.
• eliminate the toolbar.

The OnSize handler in this program demonstrates coexistence of a dockable toolbar, a status bar, and a view window.

The project also contains the system Standard, View, and History images as bitmaps.  Having these images now available as individual bitmaps allows you to see what they look like, modify them as you wish, and include only the ones of interest rather than the complete sets.

Download this rather well-commented project.

Run a DOS command in stealth mode
(added 14-May-08)

Radio Buttons
(modified 24-Oct-07)

Download module Radio source and documentation to get single-line routines that get/set a group (or multiple groups) of auto-radio buttons.  These routines require that each set of radio buttons by properly grouped (in the resource editor) so it can be handled as a single entity.  See the documention for grouping instructions.

Click the column header text of the column that is to be the primary sort key. The rows of the ListView table will be sorted such that this primary column is in ascending order. If you wish descending order, click the same column header again. If the contents of the primary column you chose are unique, i.e., each row contains a different value, then no further sorting applies.

However, you can further sort rows where the primary column contains duplicate values, by shift-clicking the header text of the column that is to serve as the secondary sort key.  [Shift-clicking means hold down a Shift or Ctrl keyboard key while you click the header text.] Then the rows will become sorted by the primary key and where the primary values are equal, by the secondary key in ascending order.  To specify descending order on the secondary key, shift-click the secondary header again.

To further sort rows where both primary and secondary column values are equal, you can shift-click another column to establish a tertiary sort key, etc.

The rules may be summarized as:

• Re-clicking (or re-shift-clicking) the same column header toggles the ascending/descending sort direction for that column.
• Shift-clicking a column header establishes an additional sort key that can be used to break any ties that remain after the previous sort keys have been applied.
• Clicking a column header with neither a Shift nor Ctrl key depressed establishes a new primary sort column and erases the list of any previously established secondary sort columns.

After clicking column headers, small bitmaps will appear to indicate the columns chosen for sorting and the sort direction.

 

Modeless Dialog Application Template
(added 30-Apr-06)

Jugoslav's AppWizard will generate a Modal Dialog application that includes comments as to how to convert it to a modeless dialog.  If you wish to use a modeless dialog, you can save a little work by downloading this module, change its first line to the name assigned to the modal dialog, then use it to replace the modal dialog source file.

Here is a small example Xeffort project that uses a pair of "Date Picker" controls to establish a date range.  These controls are very versatile and were assigned the "show none" style which allows the user to signify "date immaterial" or "date unknown".  (If a user-supplied date were mandatory, you would clear this style and keep the variable named VALID .true.). 

Before a program can use a Date Picker control, the control class must be registered via InitCommonControlsEx (see routine CCLOAD).  This registration must be done once and done early, before any dialog using the control is loaded.  Communication with the Date Picker controls is done via straightforward XCtlSendMessage.

Download the sample project.

Xeffort uses the ComCtl32.dll library to render controls, e.g., pushbuttons, check boxes, etc.  Microsoft ships Windows XP with two versions of this library -- Version 5 which renders the controls in "classic" style (rectangular pushbuttons, etc.) and Version 6 which renders controls in the new "XP-style" (pushbuttons have rounded corners, garish colors, etc.).  You can read the Microsoft documentation here. 

Version 5 is the default.  To render controls in XP-style, employ Version 6 by  downloading the file named "MyProg.exe.manifest".  This is a text file in XML format.

NOTE:  Wherever you see the text string "MyProg", replace it with the name of the program you are developing, i.e., the name of your .exe file.  Therefore, you change the filename of the file downloaded above (the ".exe.manifest" portion must remain), and you also change the 6th line in this file.  Once these changes are made, all you need do is distribute the resulting "YourProgam.exe.manifest" file along with "YourProgam.exe" file and insure both files are placed in the same directory.

As an alternative to distributing a separate file, you can incorporate the manifest within your program's resources.  Here is a crude but effective way of placing the manifest within your program.  In the downloaded zip containing the manifest, there is a small text file named "rcinc.txt".  Edit this file to replace the "MyProg" string with the name of your program.  Paste the edited file into your project's resource (.rc) file, placing near the Bitmap or Icon section of the resource file.  Then re-build your executable; this executable will be valid for all versions of Windows.  Controls will have the XP-style when your program is being run under Windows XP, and the classic style when it is run on the older versions of Windows.

Download a small Xeffort application that displays the all the codes associated with a key press.  The zip contains both the executable and the CVF 6.6C project source.  

Xeffort Testimonial

E-mail me