Listbox control visibility beyond the extents of a container frame

Hello VB experts:

I am working on a dialog in VB6 that includes a number of listbox controls with the style set to checkbox. These, in turn, are contained in frames. Because I need to save space – I have the listboxes set display a single line when not in focus and to expand to the height required to view all of the list items when the control receives focus – essentially a drop down check list. This works well, unless the list expands beyond the limits of the frame – displaying only the part of the list within the frame. I would prefer not to change the dimensions of the frame – this would be distracting. Switching list control’s container back and forth from the frame to the form would be a last resort but seems like a lot of overhead. Does anyone know of a means to display a listbox beyond the extent of its container – essentially to behave as a combobox does? Or does anyone have a more elegant solution to displaying multiple select lists? Any leads or help would be greatly appreciated,

Peter

 

I love a design challenge!

For some time I could only come up with the two solutions you already stated. But then I thought of another one: you could fake the frame using the line control.

With a bit of study and experimentation I found that a frame's border consists of two lines, a dark one whose System color is Button Shadow (&H80000010&) and a light one 10 pixels down and right from the first whose System color is Button Highlight (&H80000014&). Simply arrange 4 pairs of these in a box shape, drop a label over the top-left for your frame caption, and voila! Now all your listboxes really will have the form as a container and they'll drop down over the top of the "frame".

Regards

Wayne Ivory
IT Analyst Programmer
Wespine Industries Pty Ltd

 

Even simpler, use two Shape controls in the same manner.

Regards

Wayne

 

Thank you for this solution Wayne -

I guess that I'm lazy - everything in this dialog is created dynamically - and I was using the frames to group objects (i.e. - get a control's group from its container rather than saving this in a public variable or requerying the database). So the frame plays both a visual and a programmatic role. If I need a similar list checkbox in a fixed dialog I will certainly use your suggestion.

I currently have the listbox mouseover event expand the listbox and the frame mouseover event reset the listbox - and transfer the listbox container from the form to the frame as necessary. Of course, the problem now is the extent of the form - which I will have to deal with sooner or later...

Peter