How to implement Windows XP Visual Styles/Themes with DDT Dialogs ?

[Guest]

I´m familiar with many Windows topics and programming concepts,
but XP Visual Styles is new to me.

Normally reading SDK Documentation for a new topic supplies enough
information to get along with - not in this case. I don´t fully
understand the concept and necessary steps.

Ok, you have to specify a manifest for Common Controls to work with
Visual Styles. There is a set of api functions managing Visual Styles
(e.g. SetWndowTheme) but i couldn´t figure out, how to get this
really working.

For a start i tried several working DDT and SDK applications with various
common controls (nothing special in there like ownerdraw or customdraw)
but wasn´t successful at all.

Is there a generic way to implement Visual Styles for the whole app
or do i have to specify it for each and every window (or class) used
in my app. ? How to switch between different styles ? What about
ownerdrawn and customdrawn controls ?

My final goal is to adapt the visual style of an extension, i developped
for my personal use, for an existing commercial app using visual styles.


Maybe someone out there knows the answers or can supply hints or
sample code in Basic or C.


Thanks in advance


Guenther

[Kev Peel]

You don't have to do anything except add the "themes manifest" resource to the program. Windows will then treat the app as if it was themed*. Here is a post I made on the subject a few years back...

http://www.powerbasic.com/support/pbforums/showthread.php?t=24108

*One exception: if you are using tab controls then you'd need to call EnableDialogTheme with each child page which will then blend the dialog color with the background tab page. The code I linked to shows an example of EnableDialogTheme.

[Guest]

Kev,

many thanks for your quick reply !

1 24 "mytheme.xml" in resource was the missing part.

As a first step this works. But what about adapting my app to the look of another.
I have several third party apps running on my machine with different looks, one of
these apps offers an options tab, where you can choose 5 different looks.
I want my app to look exactly the same as this app currently does. Meaning my app
first has to find out, which of these 5 looks is currently active (the other app is
running and i can supply handles, names, process id - whatever you want) and then apply
this look to itself dynamically. Could this be done and - if yes - how ?

I still don´t understand the concept behind all this, where to find better and deeper information than in SDK ?


Guenther

[Kev Peel]

Guenther,

I have no idea, it sounds like the application is using it's own skinning engine. Windows themes, as far as I know, are only selectable by the user in Windows' control panel, which Windows then uses with each theme-enabled app.

If you post some screen shots or more information about these "themed" apps, we may be able to find out how the look is achieved. Patrice Terrier, who posts here occasionally, actually has an "skinning" tool for purchase, more details here:

http://www.zapsolution.com/winlift/index.htm

[Guest]

Kev,

thanks again !

This app uses standart windows common controls with standart shape, but the colors
differ, the backgrounds seem to have a texture, the color of the caption and menu
has changed. For instance the default button is not only surrounded by an orange
frame (standart xp blue, orange, if mouse points to it) but its background is
orange. Therefore i don´t think it is using a skinning engine. Colors, background
and state specific appearance are different - nothing else. Furthermore i know this
app is written in VC++ by a microsoft certified partner company, i´m pretty sure
they use some kind of microsoft stuff to get this look.

You can do similar things in control panel but these changes apply to all apps on
your machine and not only to a specific one.

As far as i understand these things now, a theme aplies to all apps on your machine
because colors, sounds, cursors and so on are changed in general, when activating a
new theme. There is no need to enable a theme for a specific app and there is no way
to disable it either. Maybe i´m wrong here.

You need a manifest to enable xp visual styles for a specific app as i have learned
no manifest - no xp look.

xp visual styles (plural) inplies there is more than one style. how many are there,
how do they look, and how are these styles choosen ? Maybe i´m wrong here again

My current working theory is: this app uses some kind of predefined style info
maybe provided by microsoft [xp visual styles], maybe by the programs authors[themes])
which is then applied using some microsoft mechanism (theming api ?) to get this
look. If so it could be copied.

My next step would be to find out what can be done with themeing and xp visual styles
and how. then i possibly can decide this is done somehow this way or not. The whole
thing is not really important - not a matter of life or death - it is a matter of
curiosity. My app does what it is expected to do, but compared to the other one
it looks poor, and i wonder, how they did it.

Guenther

[Mike Doty]

Created PBR, but no longer get message box?

'How do you work with XP themes?
'Is the code below correct? Created the PBR, but no longer get a message box.
'Second, does this work with PbForms?

  #DIM ALL
  #COMPILE EXE
  #RESOURCE "mytheme.pbr"
  FUNCTION PBMAIN AS LONG
    MSGBOX "What happened to the message box?"
  END FUNCTION

'MyTheme.Rc is this one line
'1 24 "mytheme.xml"
'-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
'MyTheme.Xml
'  <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
'<assembly xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1" manifestVersion="1.0">
'  <assemblyIdentity version="1.0.0.0" processorArchitecture="X86" name="CompanyName.ProductName.Description" type="win32"/>
'  <description>Your Application Description Here!</description>
'  <dependency>
'    <dependentAssembly>
'      <assemblyIdentity type="win32" name="Microsoft.Windows.Common-Controls" version="6.0.0.0" processorArchitecture="X86" publicKeyToken="6595b64144ccf1df" language="*"/>
'    </dependentAssembly>
'  </dependency>
'</assembly>

[Kev Peel]

From the above link:

You must call InitCommonControls or InitCommonControlsEx in every application that uses XP themes. MSDN states that new controls are stored in this DLL.

[Mike Doty]

Thanks!
Is the message box supposed to look different, now?

 
#DIM ALL
  #COMPILE EXE
  #INCLUDE "commctrl.inc"
  #RESOURCE "mytheme.pbr"
  FUNCTION PBMAIN AS LONG
    CALL InitCommonControls
    MSGBOX "What happened to the message box?"
  END FUNCTION

[Kev Peel]

Depends on the theme in use. With the standard theme on a simple message box, only the button(s) will look different.

[Mike Doty]

Thanks, I'll look for docs on this.

[Laurence Jackson]

You must call InitCommonControls or InitCommonControlsEx in every application that uses XP themes.

This was true of PB/Win8. It is no longer true of PB/Win9.