Opton Buttons VB6 All Black

I am in the process of updating some dll that were written in vb5 and ran in Acad2000 to vb6(sp5) which I want to run under Acad2004. All of the option buttons in frames turn black. If they are not in frames I can read them or if i compile the program as an exe file instead of a dll the option buttons in frames are readable. Has anybody else seen this? What have I missed

Wayne Lefferd

 

Can you post a screenshot of the problem?

under Acad2004. All of the option buttons in frames turn black. If they are not in frames I can read them or if i
compile the program as an exe file instead of a dll the option buttons in frames are readable. Has anybody else seen
this? What have I missed

 

Are you using a manifest in order to apply XP's visual style to your
dialog?

--
There are 10 kinds of people. Those who understand binary and those who
don't.

http://code.acadx.com
(Pull the pin to reply)

 

If I understand your question the answer is no. All of the properties were set in the properties box at design time.

The operating system I am using is XP Professional if it matters.

dialog?

 

If you're in a DLL that's loaded into AutoCAD you do not
need a manifest file, because AutoCAD takes care of that.

The problem is one that affects all VB applications that use
the new UI (XP Themes).

I can't say if this is going to work in VB, but it does in C++,
so it may be worth a try. You have to declare the following
function and call it in your Form's Initialize event. You will
also need to exclude this for code that is not running on XP:

Declare Function EnableThemeDialogTexture Lib "uxtheme" _
Alias "EnableThemeDialogTexture" (ByVal hwnd As Long, _
ByVal Flags As Long) As Long

Usage:

EnableThemeDialogText(SomeControl.hwnd, 2)

The value 2 enables the texture background for the window.

You can try passing the handle of your form, and/or the
handles of each Frame control to this function.

 

Oops. The Usage should be:

EnableThemeDialogTexture SomeControl.hwnd, 2

 

I just ran into the same problem. My VB6 dll was fine in Acad2000, but the same forms are all screwed up when compiled for Acad2004. In all cases except one, the option buttons inside of a frame are displayed with a black background color. The one exception has 4 option buttons in a frame, only one of these has the background color changed to black. I have made no other
changes, the operation system has been XP Pro for sometime.

Tom Craft

 

I just ran into the same problem. My VB6 dll was fine in Acad2000, but the same forms are all screwed up when compiled for Acad2004. In all cases except one, the option buttons inside of a frame are displayed with a black background color. The one exception has 4 option buttons in a frame, only one of these has the background color changed to black. I have made no other
changes, the operation system has been XP Pro for sometime.

Tom Craft

 

I have found the same problem with Option buttons going black background.
The frame font also suddenly goes blue and bold with the frame going through
the text.
The problem is only with XP and AutoCAD 2004 running in Dll.

If you compile for AutoCAD 2000 with exactly the same form then the option
buttons and frame fonts are fine. Somehow AutoCAD 2004 is affecting this and
I don't have an answer.
I will try Tony's suggestion.
If you go to Windows Classic desktop in XP then behaviour with AutoCAD 2004
is normal

Olaf

same forms are all screwed up when compiled for Acad2004. In all cases
except one, the option buttons inside of a frame are displayed with a black
background color. The one exception has 4 option buttons in a frame, only
one of these has the background color changed to black. I have made no other

ran in Acad2000 to vb6(sp5) which I want to run under Acad2004. All of the
option buttons in frames turn black. If they are not in frames I can read
them or if i compile the program as an exe file instead of a dll the option
buttons in frames are readable. Has anybody else seen this? What have I
missed

 

I have found a solution to this problem so even though this thread is old some people might find this useful.

The solution of using the EnableThemeDialogTexture function did not work for me. Neither did using SP6 for Visual Basic 6.0

What is happening is that VB6 apps/dlls do not have the built-in ability to take on the Windows XP look and feel (other than the titlebar.

But if the DLL is run under AutoCAD 2004/2005 then the controls inside the form inherit the XP look. This only happens for AutoCAD 2004/2005 since they were built for XP (2000,2000i,2002 were not).

The problem is that the Frame control in VB6 does not work correctly under XP. Anything inside a frame will flicker as the mouse moves around and the option buttons will show a black box where the text should be.

One solution is not to use the Frame control. Or use a PictureBox control instead but the frame is not the same and it does not have a caption.

The other solution is to use the Frame control and just have the controls sitting above it rather than in it.

You cannot put labels above a frame control however so those have to stay inside the frame and then they will flicker which is very annoying. To solve that problem you can disable the frame and the labels and the frame will no longer flicker and they won't appear to be disabled.

If you need to separate groups of option buttons then put them inside picture box controls and you can turn off the border of the picturebox so no one can tell they are there.