Window Backgrounds--I'm sick of brushes

okay, I always see all these windows apps with source and they have the background in the window that the user sets in the display options. in other words just he default background color. When I look in the source code for the background they have 'COLOR_WINDOW' instead of 'BLACK_BRUSH' and stuff. When I do that, my window is transparent. How come? can someone help me?

You want 'COLOR_WINDOW+1'.

Where would you put 'COLOR_WINDOW + 1'? In the window class' hbrBackground field? And can you just keep adding numbers to make different colors (COLOR_WINDOW + 2)?

--Garfield the Great

No, I want RGB!

How do we load color this way?

HBRUSH hb=CreateSolidBrush(RGB(x,y,z));

Then use hb as your WNDCLASS background.

Ok, I figured it out...

for your wndclass (or wndclassex) structure's hbrbackground, do this:

wndclass.hbrBackground = CreateSolidBrush(0);

then whenever you want to change it, call:

DeleteObject((HBRUSH)SetClassLong(hwnd, GCL_HBRBACKGROUND,
(LONG)CreateSolidBrush(RGB(255,0,0))));

you can change the RGB(255,0,0) to whatever RGB value you want.

here's an example program

Code:

---

#include <windows.h>

LRESULT CALLBACK WndProc(HWND hWnd, UINT uMsg, WPARAM wParam,
        LPARAM lParam);


int WINAPI WinMain(HINSTANCE hInstance, HINSTANCE hPrevInstance,
        PSTR pszCmdLine, int iShowCmd)
{
        WNDCLASS wc;
        MSG msg;
        HWND hWnd;

        wc.style = 0;
        wc.cbClsExtra = 0;
        wc.cbWndExtra = 0;
        wc.hbrBackground = CreateSolidBrush(0);
        wc.hCursor = LoadCursor(NULL, IDC_ARROW);
        wc.hIcon = LoadIcon(NULL, IDI_APPLICATION);
        wc.hInstance = hInstance;
        wc.lpfnWndProc = WndProc;
        wc.lpszMenuName = NULL;
        wc.lpszClassName = "Colors!";

        RegisterClass(&wc);

        hWnd = CreateWindowEx(0, "Colors!",
                "Pretty Colors", WS_OVERLAPPEDWINDOW,
                CW_USEDEFAULT, CW_USEDEFAULT, CW_USEDEFAULT,
                CW_USEDEFAULT, NULL, NULL, hInstance, NULL);

        ShowWindow(hWnd, iShowCmd);
        UpdateWindow(hWnd);

        while (GetMessage(&msg, NULL, 0, 0))
        {
                TranslateMessage(&msg);
                DispatchMessage(&msg);
        }

        return 0;
}


LRESULT WINAPI WndProc(HWND hwnd, UINT msg, WPARAM wParam,
        LPARAM lParam)
{

    switch(msg)
    {
        case WM_CREATE:
                DeleteObject((HBRUSH)SetClassLong(hwnd, GCL_HBRBACKGROUND,
                        (LONG)CreateSolidBrush(RGB(255,0,0))));
                return 0;
    case WM_CLOSE:
        PostQuitMessage(0);
        return 0;
    }
    return DefWindowProc(hwnd, msg, wParam,lParam);
}

---

thanks guys, but how do you make your background the default windows color? COLOR_WINDOW+1 just gives me white. mine is a light blue color(Windows 2000 default)

COLOR_BTNFACE+1

or (COLOR_BTNFACE)+1

thanks ken, but it still isn't giving me the default background

'COLOR_WINDOW+1' will give the default window background(client area) colour as specified by the user in control panel/display properties/appearance. Are you sure you mean the default window backdound?

ok ok....'application background'
I think thats techniqual enough huh