Results for "Author: alt"

A small prototype of a much larger project I am working on which required the use of labels with a little more zest. Hence, my solution is tranparent bullet labels. This project demonstrates a simple way to draw text, shapes, etc., on a usercontrol when the backstyle is set to transparent and should be useful as a starting point for anyone wanting to roll their own transparent controls with the added flexibility of drawing it yourself.

Just about everything you want to know about your mixer. I could only represent, with VB and Comctl controls, the mixer controls that my sound card supports which is quite a bit actually. As I don't have a peakmeter, I could not code for that and I haven't yet solved the mystery of multiple item controls. But, just about everything else is there. All of the mixer examples I have seen have been to mimic the intrinsic mixer so I coded mine a little differently so you can see all of the gory details. Enjoy.

Poor man's translucency. My hope is that other planet users will step up and collaborate with me to make this into a commercial-quality technique, if possible. Maybe it can be. Maybe not. Anyway, I am tired of being told that we can only have translucency on the whole form. I wanted a translucent region and figured out a way it might be done or, at the very least, spawn some ideas from other Planet members that will lead to a commercial quality solution. So, feedback is most vital! This project contains Paul Caton's excellent excellent cSubclass, cTimer, and WinSubHook2.tlb. Thanks again Paul! Hopefully, this will look pretty decent on most of your machines. It looks pretty good and smooth on my Win2K box...just like the screenshot...but I suspect mileage will vary greatly from machine to machine. If you can, compile it into an exe to evaluate it fully. Thanks in advance for any suggestions or feedback!

Building on my previous transparent bullet labels submission, I have built this control which draws transparent checkboxes. It is still a work in progress but ready for feedback. One drawback, it uses the dreaded GetKeyState + Timer combination to capture mouse clicks within the control rectangle. If anyone knows a better way to trap mouse events on the transparent parts of a control, I'd be happy to hear it...Anyway, it is functional...just launch the .vbg file...

Simply a master volume fader control...Slider functionality piggybacked from Carles P.V.'s excellent cpvSlider submission. I added mixer api to control and detect changes in the sound volume as well as a routine to draw the snail trail...Also uses Paul Caton's excellent winsubhook typelib and timer class, included in the zip. Skinnable in that the slider thumb pic can be changed. Can also probably set the pic of your choice as the usercontrol background although I did not attempt that myself... Happy Holidays!!!

Well, I only came up with 3 so far. Why you ask? Well, I downloaded this some time ago and thought it was a neat effect but what to use it for? Well, I found a little time to kill and went through all my downloaded code. I re-discovered this and decided to see if there was a fun way to make use of it. I found a couple and decided to resubmit this to PSC to see what some of you evil geniuses could do with it. If you got a little time to play, let's see what you got. ;-) Let's have some fun dammit.... My revisions: Removed the intrinsic VB timer and added Paul Caton's timer class and a reference to the WinSubHook2 typelib included in the zip. In my opinion, Paul's code is one the most useful ever submitted to PSC. I have found a multitude of uses for it and it is simply awesome coding. Also, I formatted the code and changed variable names to my taste. Forgive me Ulli. Finally, I added a TripComplete event for use in my demo. To use, make sure you have a reference to the WinSubHook2 typelib. If for some reason you can not see the effect, substitute the use of the Alphablend (msimg32.dll) API for the use of the GDIAlphablend (gdi32.dll) API call. The parameters are identical so you should only have to change the function name, uncomment the Alphablend api call, and comment the GDIAlphablend API call. Votes are not necessary but if you vote, they are Ulli's.....

This control can be a level meter (with peaks) for visualizations, a seekbar, a progress bar, or just a gradient/solid line. I consider this control to now be in beta so feedback with regard to bugs encountered, optimizations, enchancements, feature suggestions/requests are most desired. I would also like to hear suggestions on how I can improve the gradient routines. I know some excellent gradient routines have been posted recently, especially Light Templer's/LaVolpe's, but they are only 2 color and I have struggled with integrating them into my control...any help would be welcome and appreciated.

System tray clock with a twist. I always thought it was crazy to have to double-click the tray icon to launch the mixer app just so you can adjust the volume. Since the clock is not doing a helluva lot more than wasting screen real estate, I added the ability to adjust the master volume directly from the clock window. In other words, direct access. Nothing earth-shattering here, I know, but I just wanted to solve something that nags me. Now I can double-click the volume bar at the bottom of the clock and mute the sound instantly. Clicking and dragging the mouse over the volume bar will increment/decrement the volume depending upon the direction you are going. You can also click anywhere in the area of the volume bar to set the volume level where you click. To get to the options window, double-click the clock area which is above the volume bar. The clock's fore and backcolors can be changed. Hopefully I can add more customizations and features later. To exit the clock toy, press Ctrl--> Shift --> and click on the clock at the same time. As with all my code lately, I piggy-backed from Carlos P.V.'s fader code and employ Paul Caton's WinSubHook2....I know there are a couple of minor issues and the ones I don't know about, I am sure I will hear about them. Comments and suggestions welcome! Just compile it and place a shortcut to the exe in your startup folder if you want direct access to your master volume. Enjoy and happy coding! ;-)

Updated 8 March. Added the ability to cycle through the menu options on the settings form using the enter key and the up/down arrow keys. Only works when at least one item has the focus which is always the case when the form loads. Also, removed X offset property and implemented Y offset so you can adjust the vertical position of the clock and Volume slider. Also added the ability to adjust the height of the Volume slider. Just didn't need the x property because the control automatically centers on the X axis. As for the Y axis, I wanted to give the user absolute control over placement so I added Carles P.V.'s updown control, with his permission of course, to allow the user to position the clock/slider where they want. They can even be reversed and you can put the slider on top and the clock on the bottom if you want. I also added sound and the tooltip when using the mousewheel to adjust the volume. Still implementing some validation and error handling so don't get too extreme with adjusting the volume slider's height. Also working on some bullet-proof error handling and the addition of date/day display. Keep the suggestions coming...

Just a little fun with regions. Pop this control on your form, set the shape you want and, at run-time, you will have form transparency where your control is sited and in the shape that you selected. Yeah, I know the screenshot and test project are cheesy but I just didn't have time to make something more elaborate. The goal for me was simply to learn more about regions. Perhaps, those of you with the luxury of time can combine the shapes to make something more interesting or extend the control with more shapes and, maybe, a custom shape method. Just extract where you want and launch the HolePunchGroup.vbg...

A small prototype of a much larger project I am working on which required the use of labels with a little more zest. Hence, my solution is tranparent bullet labels. This project demonstrates a simple way to draw text, shapes, etc., on a usercontrol when the backstyle is set to transparent and should be useful as a starting point for anyone wanting to roll their own transparent controls with the added flexibility of drawing it yourself.

Just about everything you want to know about your mixer. I could only represent, with VB and Comctl controls, the mixer controls that my sound card supports which is quite a bit actually. As I don't have a peakmeter, I could not code for that and I haven't yet solved the mystery of multiple item controls. But, just about everything else is there. All of the mixer examples I have seen have been to mimic the intrinsic mixer so I coded mine a little differently so you can see all of the gory details. Enjoy.

Poor man's translucency. My hope is that other planet users will step up and collaborate with me to make this into a commercial-quality technique, if possible. Maybe it can be. Maybe not. Anyway, I am tired of being told that we can only have translucency on the whole form. I wanted a translucent region and figured out a way it might be done or, at the very least, spawn some ideas from other Planet members that will lead to a commercial quality solution. So, feedback is most vital! This project contains Paul Caton's excellent excellent cSubclass, cTimer, and WinSubHook2.tlb. Thanks again Paul! Hopefully, this will look pretty decent on most of your machines. It looks pretty good and smooth on my Win2K box...just like the screenshot...but I suspect mileage will vary greatly from machine to machine. If you can, compile it into an exe to evaluate it fully. Thanks in advance for any suggestions or feedback!

Building on my previous transparent bullet labels submission, I have built this control which draws transparent checkboxes. It is still a work in progress but ready for feedback. One drawback, it uses the dreaded GetKeyState + Timer combination to capture mouse clicks within the control rectangle. If anyone knows a better way to trap mouse events on the transparent parts of a control, I'd be happy to hear it...Anyway, it is functional...just launch the .vbg file...

Simply a master volume fader control...Slider functionality piggybacked from Carles P.V.'s excellent cpvSlider submission. I added mixer api to control and detect changes in the sound volume as well as a routine to draw the snail trail...Also uses Paul Caton's excellent winsubhook typelib and timer class, included in the zip. Skinnable in that the slider thumb pic can be changed. Can also probably set the pic of your choice as the usercontrol background although I did not attempt that myself... Happy Holidays!!!

Well, I only came up with 3 so far. Why you ask? Well, I downloaded this some time ago and thought it was a neat effect but what to use it for? Well, I found a little time to kill and went through all my downloaded code. I re-discovered this and decided to see if there was a fun way to make use of it. I found a couple and decided to resubmit this to PSC to see what some of you evil geniuses could do with it. If you got a little time to play, let's see what you got. ;-) Let's have some fun dammit.... My revisions: Removed the intrinsic VB timer and added Paul Caton's timer class and a reference to the WinSubHook2 typelib included in the zip. In my opinion, Paul's code is one the most useful ever submitted to PSC. I have found a multitude of uses for it and it is simply awesome coding. Also, I formatted the code and changed variable names to my taste. Forgive me Ulli. Finally, I added a TripComplete event for use in my demo. To use, make sure you have a reference to the WinSubHook2 typelib. If for some reason you can not see the effect, substitute the use of the Alphablend (msimg32.dll) API for the use of the GDIAlphablend (gdi32.dll) API call. The parameters are identical so you should only have to change the function name, uncomment the Alphablend api call, and comment the GDIAlphablend API call. Votes are not necessary but if you vote, they are Ulli's.....

This control can be a level meter (with peaks) for visualizations, a seekbar, a progress bar, or just a gradient/solid line. I consider this control to now be in beta so feedback with regard to bugs encountered, optimizations, enchancements, feature suggestions/requests are most desired. I would also like to hear suggestions on how I can improve the gradient routines. I know some excellent gradient routines have been posted recently, especially Light Templer's/LaVolpe's, but they are only 2 color and I have struggled with integrating them into my control...any help would be welcome and appreciated.

System tray clock with a twist. I always thought it was crazy to have to double-click the tray icon to launch the mixer app just so you can adjust the volume. Since the clock is not doing a helluva lot more than wasting screen real estate, I added the ability to adjust the master volume directly from the clock window. In other words, direct access. Nothing earth-shattering here, I know, but I just wanted to solve something that nags me. Now I can double-click the volume bar at the bottom of the clock and mute the sound instantly. Clicking and dragging the mouse over the volume bar will increment/decrement the volume depending upon the direction you are going. You can also click anywhere in the area of the volume bar to set the volume level where you click. To get to the options window, double-click the clock area which is above the volume bar. The clock's fore and backcolors can be changed. Hopefully I can add more customizations and features later. To exit the clock toy, press Ctrl--> Shift --> and click on the clock at the same time. As with all my code lately, I piggy-backed from Carlos P.V.'s fader code and employ Paul Caton's WinSubHook2....I know there are a couple of minor issues and the ones I don't know about, I am sure I will hear about them. Comments and suggestions welcome! Just compile it and place a shortcut to the exe in your startup folder if you want direct access to your master volume. Enjoy and happy coding! ;-)

Updated 8 March. Added the ability to cycle through the menu options on the settings form using the enter key and the up/down arrow keys. Only works when at least one item has the focus which is always the case when the form loads. Also, removed X offset property and implemented Y offset so you can adjust the vertical position of the clock and Volume slider. Also added the ability to adjust the height of the Volume slider. Just didn't need the x property because the control automatically centers on the X axis. As for the Y axis, I wanted to give the user absolute control over placement so I added Carles P.V.'s updown control, with his permission of course, to allow the user to position the clock/slider where they want. They can even be reversed and you can put the slider on top and the clock on the bottom if you want. I also added sound and the tooltip when using the mousewheel to adjust the volume. Still implementing some validation and error handling so don't get too extreme with adjusting the volume slider's height. Also working on some bullet-proof error handling and the addition of date/day display. Keep the suggestions coming...

Just a little fun with regions. Pop this control on your form, set the shape you want and, at run-time, you will have form transparency where your control is sited and in the shape that you selected. Yeah, I know the screenshot and test project are cheesy but I just didn't have time to make something more elaborate. The goal for me was simply to learn more about regions. Perhaps, those of you with the luxury of time can combine the shapes to make something more interesting or extend the control with more shapes and, maybe, a custom shape method. Just extract where you want and launch the HolePunchGroup.vbg...