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MS Office Command Bar button image Transparency problem

I am trying to make a pretty bmp for my MS Office commandbar button. The command bar is being added by an Outlook 2003 add-in .dll. I am making the .dll in VB6 as a COM Add-in.

I have no idea why a picture added to a commandbar must be so difficult. In any case I made my own little 16x16 and cut and copied the code from here http://support.microsoft.com/kb/288771

I even used the same color.
On my computer and my work computer this red color is made transparent, then wouldn't you believe it i gave it to someelse and the dam transparency does not work.

It turns out that if I change MS Office language to German that the transparency does not work.....how can a language change effect this.

I found that Microsoft Germany has the same code in german
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/288771/de Your browser might automatically at first go to an english version. But the code is the same

Does anyone have any help?

I have added the part of the .dll that adds the commandbar and picture to the bar.

SOLUTION

alainbryden

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darbid73

ASKER

Wow I have never heard of a default Environment transparency. How do I find out what it is?

In any case if you can "Trust" microsoft their suggested code in Germany and English uses the same color which is &HFF00FF
or Magenta (RGB(255, 0, 255))

alainbryden

Well if you explicitly used the colour definition in the mask (CopyBitmapAsButtonFace oPic, &HFF00FF
) then that probably isn't a problem. I was referring to how some colours are set to the System.Window colour, or System.ControlText. I was wondering whether you hadn't used a System.Mask colour property or something - but evidently you haven't. It was my only real idea :(

If your friend changes their MS Office language to english does it work? It could be that one of those many new functions you had to add refer to a LIB that is different for the German language pack?

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Alain

darbid73

ASKER

I can reproduce the problem on my computer. ie. if Office is in English it makes the color transparent if I change my Office to German it shows the red.

My problem is that VB6 is not on a multilingual computer so I cannot debug all those functions.

So the LIBs are there, there is something in the language. :-(

alainbryden

Phew :/ Multi-language support is a challenging task that I have never undertaken... Good luck with this bro.
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Alain

darbid73

ASKER

I have decided to install VB6 on a box that speak both languages - but if i may ask a dumb question - how do I debug this in VB6 it is an Add-in so can I step through it or do I have to print some output to a file?

alainbryden

I'm not sure, I've never debugged a VB6 add-on, but Visual Studio 2008 can probably do it.

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Alain

darbid73

ASKER

Well alainbryden I am not sure this question is going to go any further. I have asked a new question based on a totally different method https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/24555748/Getting-the-BMP-image-right-for-a-transparent-image-on-the-CommandBar.html at least I can reliably get it NOT working irrespective of the language.

I am not sure we can take this question any further, and I am also not sure that I can say that it is answered either. I would like to allocate some "Thank you for comforting me point" but It seems points only go with "this is a solution". Would you have a problem with me closing this question without an answer?

alainbryden

No, that would be fine.

Good luck with the new method!

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Alain

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

darbid73

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