Thread: window controls with styles and animations

  1. #1
    Registered User
    Join Date
    Mar 2011
    Posts
    53

    Question window controls with styles and animations

    i've been programming win32 for a long time and now i would like to make visually advanced windows.

    i'm talking about the buttons which change color when the mouse is over them and which have diffferent themes instead of the dull look of windows dialogs. or animated controls which appear in a stylish way on the screen.

    i don't suppose i can do all these just using the GDI. and i'm wondering if i have to use libraries to achieve this, or is pure win32 enough?

    i'm not sure what i said is understandable

  2. #2
    Banned
    Join Date
    Aug 2010
    Location
    Ontario Canada
    Posts
    9,547
    Check out the "owner draw" features of windows controls if you don't want to use widget libraries.

    Mouseover effects are fairly simple... subclass the control and play with WM_MOUSEMOVE and WM_LBUTTONDOWN / WM_LBUTTONUP messages to change the button colour or appearance.

    Another simple tactic is to use GetCursorPos() and WindowFromPoint() to manage mouseovers in your main message loop.

    Windows API is a monster 30,000+ function calls...
    if you don't have it already you should download the Windows SDK from.... HERE

Popular pages Recent additions subscribe to a feed

Similar Threads

  1. Changing the window frame styles causes the window to disappear
    By sethjackson in forum Windows Programming
    Replies: 2
    Last Post: 08-12-2010, 04:43 PM
  2. Window styles
    By maxorator in forum Windows Programming
    Replies: 2
    Last Post: 09-09-2006, 09:45 AM
  3. Displaying an IplImage in an Extended Windows Styles window
    By Tankndozer in forum Windows Programming
    Replies: 0
    Last Post: 08-10-2005, 05:22 AM
  4. C++ Window controls
    By Cosmic Diva in forum Windows Programming
    Replies: 2
    Last Post: 04-23-2002, 07:12 AM
  5. Diff between window controls and dialog controls
    By Garfield in forum Windows Programming
    Replies: 13
    Last Post: 01-18-2002, 05:49 AM

Tags for this Thread