CxShadeButton

Davide Pizzolato

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4 Nov 2001CPOL4 min read

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An owner-drawn button class that gives a professional look to your buttons.

Introduction

With this class you can easily give a professional look to your buttons in a few steps. No bitmap resources are needed - all bitmaps are generated at runtime. Parts of the code come from the CxSkinButton article. The goal is to replace the standard buttons, check boxes, and radio buttons with minimal modifications in the application code.

Add "xShadeButton.cpp" and "xShadeButton.h" to the project.
Include "xShadeButton.h" in the header file where the controls are defined.
Create (or edit) a member variable for each button you want to customize as CxShadeButton. If the Class Wizard doesn't show the CxShadeButton type, select CButton and then edit the code manually.
In the window initialization, add the CxShadeButton methods:

C++

BOOL CxShadeButtonDemoDlg::OnInitDialog()
{
    //    ...
    m_btn1.SetTextColor(RGB(255,0,0));
    m_btn1.SetToolTipText("Button1");
    m_btn1.SetShade(SHS_DIAGSHADE,8,10,5,RGB(55,255,55));
    //    ...

CxShadeButton Class Members and Operations

CxShadeButton is derived from CButton. The BS_OWNERDRAW style is added automatically, you don't need to set the "Owner draw" property in the resource editor. You can change some styles (flat, push-like, text alignment, group,...) using the resource editor, however not all the styles are currently supported. If you change the aspect of the button at runtime, to avoid flicker, first call the functions that don't cause invalidation (like SetShade, SetIcon, or SetFont) and than invalidate the button, for example with SetWindowText, or directly with Invalidate.

C++

void SetShade(UINT shadeID=0, BYTE granularity=8,
              BYTE highlight=10,BYTE coloring=0,COLORREF color=0);

Generates the button bitmaps.

Important

shadeID: can be one of these effects:

SHS_NOISE = 0
SHS_DIAGSHADE = 1
SHS_HSHADE = 2
SHS_VSHADE = 3
SHS_HBUMP = 4
SHS_VBUMP = 5
SHS_SOFTBUMP =6
SHS_HARDBUMP = 7
SHS_METAL = 8

granularity: this parameter adds a uniform noise to the button bitmaps. A good value is from 5 to 20; 0 to disable the effect. The noise has a positive effect because it hides the palette steps.
highlight: sets the highlight level when the mouse is over the button. A good value is from 5 to 20; 0 to disable the effect.
coloring: sets the percentage of color to blend in the button palette. The value can range from 0 to 100; 0 to disable the effect.
color: if coloring is greater than zero, color is mixed with the standard button colors.

Remarks: the coloring and color parameters should be used carefully to guarantee a good aspect in all the situations.

void SetToolTipText(CString s, CString sDown="");

Sets or changes the tool tip text.

nice

s: string displayed in normal state.
sDown: (optional) specifies a second text to be displayed when a check box or radio button is checked.

COLORREF SetTextColor(COLORREF new_color);

Sets or changes the button text color. Returns the previous button text color.

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void SetIcon(UINT nIcon, UINT nIconAlign=BS_CENTER, UINT nIconDown=0, 
             UINT nIconHighLight=0);

Similar to the BS_ICON style.

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nIcon: ID number of the icon resource.
nIconAlign: icon alignment, can be one of the following values:

BS_CENTER
BS_LEFT
BS_RIGHT

nIconDown: (optional) ID number of the icon resource displayed when the button is checked.
nIconHighLight: (optional) ID number of the icon resource displayed when the mouse pointer is over the button.

Remarks: the button text is automatically placed so that the icon and the text don't overlap.

C++

bool SetFont(CString sFontName, long lSize=0, long 
             lWeight=400, BYTE bItalic=0, BYTE bUnderline=0);
bool SetFont(LOGFONT* pNewStyle); / LOGFONT* GetFont();

Changes the text font.

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sFontName : specifies the typeface name of the font.
lSize : (optional) text height.
lWeight : (optional) text weight can range from 0 to 1000; 100=thin, 300=light, 400=normal, 700=bold.
bItalic : (optional) italic style.
bUnderline : (optional) underline style.

Remarks: use GetFont/SetFont with a LOGFONT structure to get/set the complete attributes of the font. GetFont returns NULL if the button is using the default system font.

void SetTextAlign(UINT nTextAlign=BS_CENTER);

Sets the text alignment

optional

nTextAlign: button text alignment, can be one of the following values:

BS_CENTER
BS_LEFT
BS_RIGHT

void SetFlat(bool bFlag);

Sets the border style:

optional

bFlag can have the following values:

FALSE = standard 3D border.
TRUE = flat border.

Compatibility

Win95, WinNT = Yes, requires IE3.0 or higher
Win98, WinME, W2K, WinXP = Yes

Acknowledgement

Thanks to all the CodeProject developers! Special thanks to:

Milan Gardian for mouse and keyboard tracking code.
Davide Calabro for CButtonST code snippets.
Rainer Mangold for radio-button and check-box code.
Jeremy Davis, Andre Brogli, Richard Cunday, Shanker Chandrabose, Luis, Gilad, Rui Lopes, Tom Archer, Tommy Svensson, David Scambler, Orioli Alessandro, João Filipe de Castro Ferreira, Jesper Kinnås, and Derek Lakin for suggestions, debugging, and support.