asked on

Changing Font Color of Disabled control

Does anyone know how (if it is possible) to change the font color (forecolor) of a disabled control (vb6). As you know, when the enabled property of a control (textbox) is set to False, the font color is gray. I would like it to remain black. I would think that if this is possible it is probably through SendMessage but do not know what message to send.

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

TimCottee

membership

This solution is only available to members.

To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.

Start Free Trial

vb_elmar

This code makes a 'snapshot' of the command1 button, stores the
image in a picturebox and fills the 'Command1.DisabledPicture' property
with the 'picture1.image'.

Needs:
=====
1 CommandButton (set Command1.Style to '1' at design time)
1 Picturebox

Private Declare Function GetDC Lib "user32" (ByVal hwnd As Long) As Long
Private Declare Function BitBlt Lib "gdi32" _
(ByVal hDestDC As Long, _
ByVal x As Long, _
ByVal y As Long, _
ByVal nWidth As Long, _
ByVal nHeight As Long, _
ByVal hSrcDC As Long, _
ByVal xSrc As Long, _
ByVal ySrc As Long, _
ByVal dwRop As Long) As Long

Private Sub disableCOMMAND1()
Command1.Caption = ""
Command1.Enabled = 0
End Sub

Private Sub Command1_Click()
disableCOMMAND1
End Sub

Private Sub Form_Activate()
DoEvents
Dim A As Long
Dim s As Long
Picture1.AutoRedraw = True
Picture1.Width = Command1.Width + 60: Picture1.Height = Command1.Height + 60
s = GetDC(Command1.hwnd)
BitBlt Picture1.hDC, 0, 0, Command1.Width, Command1.Height, s, 0, 0, vbSrcCopy
Picture1.Refresh
Set Command1.DisabledPicture = Picture1.Image
End Sub

vb_elmar

This code makes a 'snapshot' of the Text1 textbox, stores the
image in a picturebox and overlaps the (disabled) textbox
with the picturebox.

Needs:
=====
1 CommandButton
1 Picturebox
1 Textbox

Private Declare Function GetDC Lib "user32" (ByVal hwnd As Long) As Long
Private Declare Function BitBlt Lib "gdi32" _
(ByVal hDestDC As Long, _
ByVal x As Long, _
ByVal y As Long, _
ByVal nWidth As Long, _
ByVal nHeight As Long, _
ByVal hSrcDC As Long, _
ByVal xSrc As Long, _
ByVal ySrc As Long, _
ByVal dwRop As Long) As Long

Private Sub disableCOMMAND1()
Picture1.Move Text1.Left, Text1.Top, Text1.Width, Text1.Height
Picture1.ZOrder 0
Command1.Caption = ""
End Sub

Private Sub Command1_Click()
disableCOMMAND1
End Sub

Private Sub Form_Activate()
DoEvents
t = Timer: While Timer - t < 1: Wend
Command1.Caption = "Move PictureBox to Text1_position"
Dim A As Long
Dim s As Long
Picture1.AutoRedraw = True
Picture1.Width = Text1.Width + 0: Picture1.Height = Text1.Height + 0
s = GetDC(Text1.hwnd)
BitBlt Picture1.hDC, 0, 0, Text1.Width, Text1.Height, s, 0, 0, vbSrcCopy
Picture1.Refresh
Text1.Enabled = 0: Text1 = "This is text1 disabled"

End Sub

D B

ASKER

Thanks for the quick response.

vb_elmar: That is WAY too much work. I have a tab control with 6 tabs and about 50 TextBoxes. Even though I can iterate through the forms controls and identify the textboxes and load pictureboxes by defining one as a control array, I do not want to lock up the application creating and destroying and making all those API calls. Thanks anyway for the effort.