*************************************************************************** * * README.TXT * * Klasman Quality Consulting, Inc. * 13 Vespa Lane * Nashua, NH 03060 * * CompuServe: 70233,1476 * Internet: klasman@kqc.mv.com * * MLIST.VBX V4.60.0000 * * 11:51 PM 9/4/95 * * Multi-Purpose List Box Control for Visual Basic 3.0 * *************************************************************************** ATTENTION Now under new ownership. On August 1, 1995, Robin McKean transfered ownership of his VB Custom Control suite (MLIST.VBX, MCOMBO.VBX, MPOPUP.VBX, TBAR.VBX) to my company, Klasman Quality Consulting, Inc. I would like to thank Robin, for without his vision, skills and determination, this software would not exist. And also for giving us the opportunity and responsibility for moving this software into the future. Kevin M. Klasman, President *************************************************************************** MLIST is a custom control for managing the way your data appears in a list box. MLIST is a property for property replacement of the standard List Box control which comes with Visual Basic 3.0. In addition, there are many more features which MLIST can do that you can't do with the normal List Box. Some of these features are: * Set up owner draw columnar data in the list box. This is NOT a MULTI-COLUMN list box. MLIST now has this feature, but the MLIST List Box scrolls vertically, like a normal list box. Your data is arranged in columns, with specific drawing flags setup for each "Drawing Region". Think of each line as being broken up into different areas, each with its own drawing flags and data. * Make a drawing region a bitmap or a checkbox. You have control over the entire list's bitmaps through the default bitmap property, or you can set individual lines bitmap properties. * Control individual line colors in the list box * Total control over the checked and unchecked states of lines * Now MLIST has aligned bitmaps as well. You specifiy the bitmap, the text, and the alignment (top, bottom, right, left), and MLIST will draw the text and the bitmap in the area you define. * New in verions 4.00. You can now have true MUTLIPLE COLUMN list boxes, with bitmaps and check boxes. Multiple columns are set up through setting the LBS_MULTICOLUMN style for the list box. You control the width of each item. This attribute differs in that each line has a certain width. So it may take two or more columns of items to actually fill a line * Checking and Selecting a range of line items * Properties to find closest match and find exact matches in the list box. * Complete control over colors in the list box. Colors can be set for normal lines, individual lines, normal highlight colors, and individual highlight colors. * MList V4.10 now has 3-D effects * You can now setup vertical and horizontal grids * Virtual List Boxes. A notification event is sent when more data is required by the application. * Properties to aide you in drag and drop, including identifying which line item was dropped upon, and being able to select multiple line items before starting a drag * New ScrollMessage event for drawing column headers over scrolling list boxes * Handle entire drawing of items in your code * Set individual fonts for individual lines * Resort entire lists * Resize list box to fit windows * Improved string searching * Variable height lines in the list box *************************************************************************** NEW IN VERSION 4.60 Little has changed since version 4.58. Help has been updated, since several minor revisions had been released without updating Help. Several bugs have also been fixed. See BUG.TXT for details. This release is primarily in response to the transfer of ownership. Look for a release in the fall... the contents of which remain to be seen... *************************************************************************** This ZIP file contains: BUG.TXT List of bug fixes. FINDSTR.FRM Form for FindString Demo FINDSTR.MAK FindString and FindStringExact Demo DEMO.MAK Sample project file for MLIST DEMO.FRM Form used by the DEMO.MAK DEMO.FRX Binary part of form used by DEMO.MAK PLUS.BMP Bitmap used in DEMO.MAK PAGE.BMP Ditto MLIST.VBX VB version of the MLIST custom control MLIST.HLP Windows Help file for MLIST README.TXT This file ITEMPIC.MAK ItemPicture property example ITEMPIC.FRM Form for this project (follow instructions in Help) SCROLL.MAK Scrolling column header examples SCROLL.FRM Form for scrolling example VIRTUAL.MAK Virtual List Box example VIRTUAL.FRM Form for virtual list box *************************************************************************** REGISTRATION This Multi-Column List Box is Shareware. It is NOT crippled in anyway. When you download this custom control, you have the same custom control that I am using in my everyday VB programming. As a Shareware contributor, I am counting on the honor and moral fiber of every person who downloads this custom control to do the right thing. Right now, the maximum region size in the List Box is 2048 characters. You can have as many 2048 regions as you want. Let me know if this causes a problem. I don't anticipate anyone needing to display more than this number of characters to the screen. If you like and appreciate (and more importantly, use) this custom control... 1) Send $25.00 to the address listed above, or 2) Register in the Compuserve SWREG forum, ID 7286 Registered users may purchase the source... 1) Send $50.00 to me at the above address. 2) Register in the SWREG Forum, ID tbd. If you register via CompuServe, the source will be e-mailed to you. Please remember, you may not purchase source unless you are a registered user. This control is written in C++ and has been compiled using Visual C++ 1.52. You may now register this control in the SWREG on Compuserve. Type GO SWREG, ID 7286. *************************************************************************** WARRANTY Klasman Quality Consulting, Inc. disclaims all warranties, either express or implied, including, but not limited to, implied warranties of merchantibility and fitness for a particular purpose, with regard to the SOFTWARE, the sample applications and the accompanying written materials. *************************************************************************** WARNING MList is an owner draw list box. Therefore, use the SendMessage API call with care when MList is your target. Some messages assume that the list box has the LBS_HASSTRINGS style, which MList does not. MList will GPF when these messages are processed. *************************************************************************** PROGRAMMER'S NOTES (or, what I need to know to use this custom control) The Multi-Column List Box is an enhanced List Box control. MLIST now contains all standard listbox properties. The following is a description of each additional property. What it does, and how to use it in your own VB programming. For help with these properties, see the Help included with VB. The ones listed below are additions. ItemHeight This property is responsible for controlling the height of each individual line item in the list box. It defaults to 195 Twips, the height of the font used by the standard list box. You should adjust this height if you change the font, font size, etc.. I'm not sure whether or not this property will change the height of the lines after the list box has already been created. I did not design the list box control to have the height of the items change dynamically. Set the height of this item at design time, and the font, and your list box will be fine. Experiment with this during run-time if you like, and let me know how it works out, and how I can make this item work more to your liking. DrawRegions This item determines the number of drawing regions on each line. This is basically equivelent to the number of COLUMNS, but this list box will still scroll like a normal list box. When setting this property, the control clears the flags for the draw regions and sets them to left aligned, single line, and centered vertically. Consult the Windows API for DrawText to see what exactly these flags mean. ItemLength This is an indexed property which corresponds to the length of each drawing region. If you want a drawing region to be a specific length, set that drawing region's length to the desired setting in twips. For example... MList1.DrawRegions = 2 MList.ItemLength(1) = 500 MList.ItemLength(2) = 500 ' Generates an out of index error MList1.ItemLength(0) = XXX MList1.ItemLength(3) = XXX It is probably a good idea to set the lengths of all drawing regions when you are changing the defaults. DrawFlags This is an indexed property which corresponds to the flags of each drawing region. If you want a drawing region to be drawn in a specific manner, set that drawing region's flags to the desired settings. For specific flags, look up the DrawText API function in the Windows API Reference. In the following example, I setup two drawing regions and set the second drawing region's flags to right justify the text. In this example, the second drawing region displays currency values. Const DT_RIGHT = 2 Const DT_VCENTER = 4 Const DT_SINGLELINE = 32 MList1.DrawRegions = 2 MList1.DrawFlags(2) = DT_RIGHT + DT_VCENTER + DT_SINGLELINE MList.ItemLength(1) = 500 MList.ItemLength(2) = 500 If you are planning to include the '&' character in your strings, you should include the DT_NOPREFIX flag to avoid the underline. I do NOT automatically add this flag for you, as I want you to have total control over the flags. ActiveRegion Setting this property affects the next two properties. It defines the DrawingRegion (or index or column) that TextRegion and ListRegion will return. Perhaps an example is in order. My list box is divided up into three columns, name, account number, dollar amount. I want to get the account number for the currently selected line as well as the first item... MList1.ActiveRegion = 2 aString$ = MList1.TextRegion ' Gets 2nd column of current text bString$ = MList1.ListRegion(0) ' 2nd column of item at index 0 TextRegion This property will return the ActiveRegion in the currently selected text. See the above "ActiveRegion". Corresponds to a DrawRegion of the Text property. These values can also be written to at run time. ListRegion This property will return the ActiveRegion in the item at the specific index. See the above "ActiveRegion". Corresponds to a DrawRegion of the List property. These values can also be written to at run time. DefPicture This is the default bitmap to be displayed in the ImageRegion when a specific bitmap has not been assigned to that items ItemPicture property. Please see the demo on setting your own default picture and ItemPicture properties. ImageType This determines what type of image we are dealing with in our image region. If this property is set to 0, then the ImageRegion property is ignored and only text is displayed. If this image type is valid, then a checkbox or bitmap/icon is displayed in the ImageRegion. Note that when the image type is set to AlignBitmap, the normal drawing regions no longer apply. Anybody got a problem with that??? ImageRegion This property specifies which region contains the image region. This value should be any number between 1 and the number of DrawRegions. You may not set this property to a value of less than zero or greater then DrawRegions. When setting up your DrawRegions, the following is a good example: MList1.DrawRegions = 3 MList1.ImageRegion = 1 MList1.ItemLength(1) = 100 ' Bitmap or Icon is in here MList1.ItemLength(2) = 500 MList1.ItemLength(3) = 750 ' Don't leave a space for the ImageRegion in your strings MList1.AddItem "Region2" + Chr$(9) + "Region3" MList1.AddItem "Region22" + Chr$(9) + "Region33" The ImageRegion is ignored when calculating the "piece" of text that goes in that region. Checked This property is very similar to the Selected property. In a Multi-Column list box with the ImageType set 2 (CheckBox), this property will return to you whether or not that line item is checked or not. For example: For X% = 0 To MList1.ListCount - 1 If MList1.Checked(X%) Then Debug.Print "I am Checked! "; X% Else Debug.Print "I am not checked! "; X% End If Next X% ' Check the first item MList1.Checked(0) = True ItemPicture This property is an array of pictures which correspond to the bitmaps for each line item in the list box. If this item is not set by you, then the MList uses the DefPicture property. ' Change the first items picture in the list box MList1.ItemPicture(0) = Image1.Picture ItemForeColor This property is an array of color which correspond to the foreground color for each line item in the list box. If this item is not set by you, then the MList uses the default foreground color property. ' Change the first items foreground color to white MList1.ItemForeColor(0) = RGB(255,255,255) ItemBkColor This property is an array of color which correspond to the background color for each line item in the list box. If this item is not set by you, then the MList uses the default background color property. ' Change the first items background color to black MList1.ItemBkColor(0) = RGB(0,0,0) Alignment This property controls the placement of the bitmap when the image type is set to 4, AlignBitmap. See the demo for details, but basically the values for this property are: 1 - Align the bitmap or icon to the left, centered, then the text, centered vertically and left justified. 2 - Align the bitmap or on top, centered, then the text, centered horizontally and vertically. 3 - Align the bitmap or icon to the right, centered, then the text, centered vertically and left justified. 4 - Align the bitmap or icon on bottom, centered, then the text, centered horizontally and vertically. Note that when the image type is set to AlignBitmap, the normal drawing regions no longer apply. Anybody got a problem with that??? MultiColumn This turns the list box into a true multiple column list box. The list box will scroll horizontal instead of vertical. A default item width is provided, but you, the developer, should override this property. This property should be set to true for multi-column, or false (the default) for normal list box behavior. ItemWidth The property specifies the width of each line in a multiple column list box. The width is set in Twips. The normal drawing regions still apply, but I can't think of a reason why someone would want to divide line items in a column list box into more columns. FindString Setting this property will cause the list box to search for a string with the closest match from the current ListIndex. If one is found, that string is set to the current ListIndex. This is useful for moving items through a list box while typing the string in an edit control, ie. Search in Help. FindStringExact This property is the same as above, except that it will search for an exact match. RangeStart This property marks the beginning line item for RangeSelected or RangeChecked. The offset is 0 based, so the first item is 0. RangeEnd This property marks the ending line item for RangeSelected or RangeChecked. RangeSelected All items in the range RangeStart to RangeEnd are marked as selected in the list box. If the list box is not multi-select, then this is ignored. MList1.RangeStart = 0 MList1.RangeEnd = 3 MList1.RangeSelected = True RangeChecked All items in the range RangeStart to RangeEnd are marked as checked in the list box. MList1.RangeStart = 0 MList1.RangeEnd = 3 MList1.RangeChecked = False SetHzScroll When all is said and done, and you are through setting up your list box, and your columns extend past the displayable area of the list box, setting this property to True will cause the MLIST control to add up all of the drawing regions and add a horizontal scroll bar to the list box if one is neccessary. HiliteForeColor, This is the default foreground color to use when a line in the list box is hilited. If these colors are set, then the normal colors are ignored, and the HiliteForeColor is used to draw the text, and HiliteBackColor is used to draw the background. You may force MList to use the default colors by setting this color equal HiliteBackColor. HiliteBackColor, This is the default background color to use when a line in the list box is hilited. If these colors are set, then the normal colors are ignored, and the HiliteForeColor is used to draw the text, and HiliteBackColor is used to draw the background. You may force MList to use the default colors by setting this color equal HiliteForeColor. ItemHiliteForeColor, This is a property array, which corresponds to each line item in the list box. Using this property, you can set the foreground and background hilited color of individual line items. MList1.ItemHiliteForeColor(0) = RGB(0,0,0) MList1.ItemHiliteBackColor(0) = RGB(255,255,255) ItemHiliteBackColor, This is a property array, which corresponds to each line item in the list box. Using this property, you can set the foreground and background hilited color of individual line items. MList1.ItemHiliteForeColor(0) = RGB(0,0,0) MList1.ItemHiliteBackColor(0) = RGB(255,255,255) MaskingColor This color is used to mask out colors in your bitmaps when they are included in your MList Box. For example, lets say that you know you are not going to use the color white in your bitmaps or list boxes, so, you can set all the pixels in your bitmap, which you want to be transparent to white, and the natural color of the list box will show through your bitmap wherever the color white is. Think of this as the transparent color, like in Icons, except you get to determine what it is. HorizontalGrids Set this property to true, if you want to allow horizontal grid lines to be drawn on your list box. VerticalGrids Set this property to true, if you want to allow vertical grid lines to be drawn on your list box. GridStyle This determines what line style is used to draw the grid lines. This didn't quite turn out the way I wanted, but experiment if you like, and give me some suggestions. BorderStyle This property controls the border style of the list box. Valid values are normal, raised, and inset. RiseColor This is the color of the rising edge of a 3-D list box. Default color is white. FallColor This is the color of the falling edge of the 3-D list box. The default color is a dark grey color. Version This property was included by me to insure backwards compatibility. You don't need to be concerned with its use, as I use it for different things. ExtendedSelect This property will allow multiple select list boxes to be accessed via extended selection. This causes the listbox to be created with the LBS_EXENDEDSEL style. See the MS-Windows SDK help for more on extended select. GridColor This property determines the color of the horizontal and vertical grids. The default color is black. I prefer light grey. FindDirection This property now determines which direction a FindString, FindPattern, FindPatternColumn, FindStringExact will search the list. If set to 0, the search will begin at the currently active ListIndex and search to the bottom of the list. If set to one, MList will begin at the current ListIndex and search to the top of the list. EnableVirtualMsgs This property enables virtual messages. Setting this property to True causes a message to be sent to the VirtualMessage event whenever the user approaches the beginning or end of the list. These messages are sent whether caused by a mouse or keyboard event. See VirtualMessage event for details. VirtualMsgZone This property determines when a virtual message event is sent. This property indicates then "zone" at the beggining and end of the list that triggers the event. For example, setting this property to 100, would cause a VIRTUAL_END event to be sent to VirtualMessage when the user got within a 100 lines of the end of the list box, and a VIRTUAL_BEGIN event when the user gets within 100 lines of the begging of the list box. The event is only triggered if the user is heading towards the respective end of the list box. CheckStyle This property deterines the type of "checkbox" displayed by a checkbox style MList. When this property is set to 0, the normal "cross/diagonal" check box is used. When set to one, a check mark is placed in the box instead. CheckColor This property determines the color of the check mark. SortColumn When using the DrawRegions property, this property can be used to determine which piece of your string determines the sort order. For example: MList1.DrawRegions = 2 MList1.SortColumn = 2 MList1.AddItem "100" + Chr$(9) + "High" Mlist1.AddItem "101" + Chr$(9) + "Critical" This example would sort the list box by priority. Only strings added after this property is set will be affected. If this property is changed after the strings are added, you will have to remove all the strings and then re-add them. I thought about doing this myself, but the issues over preserving pictures, drawing info, and all that other stuff made it a little more difficult than I care to tackle at this moment. Setting this property to 0 sorts based on the entire string. SelectMode This property will help you when you want to drag and drop with a mutli-select/ extended select list box. When using the normal extended select/multi-select list box, after selecting X number of items, if you select a hilited item with the mouse, all the other items are de-selected. This is a problem when trying to drag and drop multiple items from the list. Setting this property to 1 (Drag and Drop) causes the left mouse click to "Ignored" when the item begin selected is already hilited. This allows the user to start the drag (MouseMove), and you, the developer, can then set MList1.Drag 1, so dragging can begin. If the user releases the drag over the same list box, nothing changes. If the user moves over other controls, you will get the appropriate messages. Clicking on a hilited item, and not moving the mouse, then releasing the mouse over the same spot, will de-select all other items in the list box, except for the one over which the mouse was released. All in all, this property causes MList to behave like the File Manager program which comes with Windows. See the Demo and File Manager for examples of the behavior. ItemX This property is available only at run time. You may set this property in conjunction with ItemY to determine which item in the list is currently under mouse events. ItemY This property is available only at run time. You may set this property in conjunction with ItemX to determine which item in the list is currently under mouse events. Item This property returns the Index of the string at ItemX and ItemY. Here is an example that determines over which item a control was dropped: Sub MList1_DragDrop (Source As Control, X As Single, Y As Single) MList1.ItemX = X MList1.ItemY = Y Debug.Print "Control was dropped over item at Index";Str$(MList1.Item) End Sub This property starts the search at TopIndex, since it assumes that the item you are looking for is currently displayed in the list box. StringCompare This property determines whether compares are case sensitive or case insensitive. This only affects the compare when determining placement in a Sorted list box. This does not affect FindString and FindStringExact properties. Resort Setting this property to 1 causes the list box to resort itself, provided of course that it is a sorted list box. Additionally, the sort may fail if there is not enough disk space for resorting. NoIntegralHeight Set this property to True if you want to be able to size the list box to fit inside the entire window. Normal Windows forces the list box to be an exact fit for the height of each line item. For example: If you have room for ten line items, and each line item is 195 twips high, Windows will resize the list box to 1950 even if you tell it to set the list box to 2015. DisableDrawing I added this property to enable the developer to suspend drawing until font changes, position changes, etc. are completed. For example, you might want to set this property to True while you are changing the font characteristics of a line that is visible in the list box. Before you set the last font attribute, set this value to False, and the line will redisplay itself with the correct font. ItemFontBold This property controls the bold attribute of an individual line item. Set this property to true to cause that lines text to be displayed in bold. A word of caution... Setting the individual font attributes of each line will cause a font for that line to be created. Windows will only support so many fonts. If you are going to be setting individual fonts, consider using the UNIMPLEMENTED property which will accept an actual font handle. See UNIMPLENTED for details. MList1.ItemFontBold = True ** You should set the font name before setting this property. ** ItemFontItalic This property controls the italicized property of the font for a specific line. If you want a lines text to appear italicized, set this property to true for a specific line. MList1.ItemFontItalic = True ** You should set the font name before setting this property. ** ItemFontName This property controls the font name for a specific line of text. You should set this property first and then set the others. See your VB Help for details on this property "FontName". MList1.FontName = "MS Sans Serif" ItemFontSize This property controls the individual size for a specific line of text. MList1.ItemFontSize = 7.8 ** You should set the font name before setting this property. ** ItemFontStrikeThru Set this property to True if you want the font for a particular line of text to have a line through it. MList1.ItemFontStrikeThru = True ** You should set the font name before setting this property. ** ItemFontUnderline Set this property to True if you want the font for a particular line of text to have an underline beneath it. MList1.ItemFontUnderline = True ** You should set the font name before setting this property. ** OwnerDraw Set this property to True if you want to control all drawing of a line. See the DrawItem event for handling drawing of a line. ListBoxStyle This property determines whether the lines in a list box are a fixed height or a variable height. Setting this property to 0 means all the lines in the list box are a fixed height, as determined by the ItemHeight property. If this property is set to 1, then the lines in the list box are variable height. The property AddItemHeight should be set before adding an item to the list. After that, you can use IndItemHeight to adjust the height of a line. The reason for this is because I need the height of the line before the line is displayed, otherwise, the entire list must be redrawn when you change the height of that line with IndItemHeight. AddItemHeight This property determines the height of the next line to be added when the list is a variable height list box. See ListBoxStyle above. MList1.AddItemHeight = 195 ' Default line height IndItemHeight This property can be used to adjust the height of a line item after it has been added to the list box. Be aware that this causes the entire list box to be redrawn. You might want to disable redrawing while you adjust he height of a lot of lines. MList1.IndItemHeight(0) = 395 MList1.IndItemHeight(2) = 595 InString Like FindString, except this property looks for a string in a string. FindColumn Set this propery to the column you want to search when using the FindColumnString property. FindColumnString The string you want to search for in FindColumn. FindResult This property controls the action of MList after it finds a string via FindString, FindStringExact, FindColumnString, or InString. If set to 0, then ListIndex is updated, and the image of the list box is updated as well. If set to one, the list box is not updated. In either case, FindIndex is updated with the ListIndex of the found item, when an item is successfully found. FindIndex This property contains the ListIndex of the last successful find of an item. This property is updated whether FindResult is set to Update List Index or or Update FindIndex. Compare this to ListIndex or previously set FindIndex to see if a find is successful. In version 4.51, FindIndex will be set to -1 if the search should fail. OwnerCompare This property determines if the internal compare function is used to compare strings during sorting, or whether the CompareItem function will be called. FindPattern You can use this property to find a pattern in the listbox. This property behaves exactly as FindString except that you may use wild cards. For example: MList1.FindPattern = "Robin W. Mc*" would find yours truly if it where in the list box. The starting point is determined by the FindDirection. SearchCompare also determines the case sensitivity of the search. FindPatternColumn Set FindColumn to the column you want to search, then use this property to search for the pattern of the string in that column. MList1.FindColumn = 2 MList1.FindPatternColumn = "Bit*" SearchCompare This property determines the case sensitivity of the searches used by MList. If set to 0, then FindString, FindPattern, FindStringExact, FindColumnString, and FindPatternColumn will search without concern for case. If set to 1, then the search is case sensitive. I set this property apart from StringCompare so that you can have different cases for the sort order and the searches. Note: This property does NOT affect InString. InString is always case sensitive. ItemFont This property allows you to set the font property of many lines with the same font. Dim font As Integer font = CreateFont(...) MList1.ItemFont(1) = font MList1.ItemFont(20) = font MList1.ItemFont(21) = MList1.ItemFont(20) You can create a font by calling CreateFont or CreateFontIndirect. You can also get a system font by calling GetSystemObject. You can then use this font to assign a font property to different lines in your list box. It is your responsibilty to destroy the font. If you use the standard VB font properties, FontName, FontBold, etc... VB will destroy the font for you. MList assumes that the font you have assigned to an individual line item through this property is spread out all over the galaxy. Therefore, you need to clean it up. NOTE: You can also use the font property of a line whose font was created with the regular ItemFont properties. For example: MList1.ItemFontName(0) = "Arial" MList1.ItemFontBold(0) = TRUE MList1.ItemFont(1) = MList1.ItemFont(0) MList will clean up the font used by ItemFont(0), since it was created with the normal VB properties. Since the font is being cleaned up automatically, you do not have to clean up the same font which was assigned to ItemFont(1). If you still have questions about this property, see CreateFont API. SortOrder Either Ascending or Descending. Ascending is ASCII '0' - 'Z'. Descending would be 'Z' - '0'. This is pretty much self explanatory. ClickRegion This property contains the region in which the mouse was clicked for the given line pointed to by ListIndex. This property is set on the MouseDown event. This property is read only at runtime. AutoCheck Determines whether or not double clicking a line will toggle that line items checked state. When set to TRUE (Default) the checked state will be toggled. Otherwise, the double clicks are ignored. SortType Determines the type of data in the sort column. The options are: 0 - string, which is the default sort type 1 - number, assumed of type float, but any number will do! 2 - Date in the order MM/DD/YY or MM/DD/YYYY This isn't fair to users of other countries, so look for an enhancement to the date format. *************************************************************************** New Events SelChange() This event is called whenever a selection in the list box is changed either through the keyboard or the mouse. You might want to use the event instead of or in addition to the Click method if you want to respond to selection changes when the user use the arrow keys instead of the mouse. SelCheck(Index As Integer, State As Integer) This event is called whenever the checked status of a line in the list box is changed. The first parameter to this event is the Index (line item) that has been effected. The second parameter is the state of the checked box. It is either True or False. VirtualMessage(Message As Integer) This is my first attempt at a virtual list box, so please don't laugh. I am basically providing the means by which to notify you when more data is needed. For now, you will have to keep track of your own data. The following Message(s) are sent to this event: VIRTUAL_UP - This should be defined as having a value of (1). This message will be sent when you need to add items to the end of the list, because it is scrolling up. VIRTUAL_DOWN - This should be defined as having a value of (2). This message will be sent when you need to add items to the beginning of the list, because it is scrolling down. VIRTUAL_END - This is sent when the user is moving to the end of the list. You should load whatever number of lines you need to, then MList will position ListIndex to the end of the list. This item should be defined as (3). VIRTUAL_HOME - This is sent when the user is moving to the beginning of the list. You should load whatever number of lines you need to, then MList will position ListIndex to the start of the list. This item should be defined as (4). MList will move the current ListIndex as Items are added to and removed from the list. You should try to cache all the items you will load in memory, then add them to the list at one time. Save off TopIndex and ListIndex, so that you can restore them. You will need to subtract or add the number of new items loaded (and removed) depending on which direction you are moving in. See the example for details. There are no properties like VirtualListIndex, VirtualTopIndex, VirtualCount, etc. I am thinking hard about these, and hope to come up with an elegant solution. Any suggestions??? I guess what I have done is provide virtual capabilities while leaving most of the implementation in your court. ScrollMessage(Offset As Index) This function is called when the list box is scrolling **HORIZONTALLY**. This allows you to scroll your own column headers over the list box. Offset is the number of **PIXELS** the window has been scrolled. See the scroll demo for details. Unforunately, due to Twips To Pixels and vis a vis, there is no exact relation between the number of pixels and the number of twips. If you look at the example, you'll see that the more columns the right you go, the further off the column header is. This can be solved manually placing each one to start with. Once this is done, just copy the code and go! DrawItem(ListIndex As Integer, ItemAction As Integer, ItemState As Integer, ItemDC As Integer, ItemLeft As Integer, ItemTop As Integer, ItemRight As Integer, ItemBottom As Integer, ItemText As String) This event is called when OwnerDraw is set to True. Owner draw basically forces you be responsible for drawing each and every line item. The following is a brief description of the parameters. Lookup Help for DRAWITEMSTRUCT in your WinAPI help for more details. ListIndex - Index of item being drawn. 0 based. ItemAction - Action being performed (See DRAWITEMSTRUCT) ItemState - State of line (See DRAWITEMSTRUCT) ItemDC - DC to do the drawing with. DON'T use MList1.hDC ItemLeft - Left coordinate of rectangle ItemTop - Top coordinate of rectangle ItemRight - Right coordinate of rectangle ItemBottom - Bottom coordinate of rectange ItemText - The text that needs to be drawn See the commented out code in SCROLL.MAK for details on how you might get started ousing this feature (Set OwnerDraw to True!). CompareItem(ListItem1 As String, ListItem2 As String, Result As Long) If you set OwnerCompare to TRUE, then this function is called to compare two strings. You may parse the string out any way you like. You should store -1 in Result if ListItem1 is less then ListItem2, 1 if ListItem1 is greater than ListItem2, or 0 if they are equal. WARNING: Result will still be affected by SortOrder. If you plan to determine your own sort order, then set SortOrder to Ascending and leave it. Your sort order will not be affected. A SortOrder of Descending will effectively negate Result so it is the opposite of what you set it to. *************************************************************************** FORMATTING STRINGS You should place the Tab character between each column in your string. The following example formats a string for the DrawFlags example: MList1.AddItem "Robin W. McKean" + Chr$(9) + "$100.00" The following string is for three columns: MList1.AddItem "Robin W. McKean"+Chr$(9)+"$100.00"+Chr$(9)+"True" Remember, you do NOT have to include a column for the ImageRegion. If the ImageRegion property was 1 and the DrawRegions property was 3, then the following line would work fine (3-1=2) MList1.AddItem "Robin W. McKean"+Chr$(9)+"$100.00" *************************************************************************** REACHING THE AUTHOR Klasman Quality Consulting, Inc can be reached via US Mail at... 13 Vespa Lane Nashua, NH 03060 You can reach us via E-Mail at the following locations... CompuServe: Kevin M. Klasman 70233,1476 INTERNET: klasman@kqc.mv.com *************************************************************************** REVISION HISTORY 3.00.0000 Initial release of the MLIST.VBX Custom Control 3.01.0000 Fixed "Bad Index" error message when setting Selected property to True|False. Added ItemData property to control. Added ListIndex property to control. Fixed an apparent bug in the VB API that was passing right mouse button clicks to the Click event, but not the left mouse button. 3.02.0000 Fixed a ton of problems. Namely, the page down didn't work. Delete current controls and rebuild to fix this problem. Added ALL default controls for the standard list box. Tested all of them before uploading. 3.03.0000 Fixed the index problem with the List property. If anything, I am guilty of being over enthusiastic. I apologize to those who got the previous version and thought it sucked. Probably because it did. I added bitmaps and checkboxes as well as the ability to change the color of a specific line. You can also change the bitmap of a specific line item. 3.04.0000 Fixed the bug with setting the Checked property, and then not having the user be able to double click it or click the box to change it back. Added the AlignBitmap image type and the Alignment property. 4.00.0000 Added the Multicolumn property and item width. Added the FindString and FindStringExact properties for searching the list box. Added the range properties for checking and selecting multiple line items. 4.01.0000 Removed the 64k limit. MLIST will now allow more than 64k worth of data to be added to it. Also, quit handling default methods, such as Move (which didn't work), Refresh, and others. Fixed problem with RemoveItem not deleting lines data. Changing the way MLIST handled strings did the job. 4.02.0000 Removed a bug which caused a GP fault when more than 16 drawing regions were requested by the user. Reworked VB2.0 compatibility strategy. 4.10.0000 Added 3-D, rise and fall colors, and SelChange event. 4.11.0000 Hilighted lines will default to the system colors as controlled by the control panel. User may still override useing the HiliteForeColor and HiliteBackColor. Added the ExtendedSelect property. 4.20.0000 Tightened up the difference between a multi-select list box and a normal list box. I added grid color, virtual messages, check marks in check boxes, SelChange events when ListIndex is changed, SelCheck for when an item is checked/unchecked. 4.30.0000 Changed the way that virtual list boxes determine when they are in the virtual region. I used to use the TopIndex property, now I use the thumb position on the scroll bar. Added new properties for SortColumn and StringCompare. These properties allow you sort on different columns as well as determine if the strings are case sensitive/insensitive. Added new properties for Drag and Drop. The first, SelectedMode, doesn't allow items to become "de-selected" when dragging. ItemX, ItemY, and Item help you determine which line item is being dragged over/dropped upon. Fixed dynamic loading of an MList, and calling AddItem "MyString", 0 when there are no items in the list. Added ScrollMessage for scrolling column headers. 4.50.0000 Added font support, complete owner draw, disable drawing, and NoIntegralHeight support. Added InString, FindResult, FindColumn, and FindColumnString. Added icon support. 4.55.0000 Added help, changed memory allocation method, and added ClickRegion property. 4.56.0000 Cleaned up a memory leak. Added AutoCheck property. Fixed bug with hitting enter or tab key on sorted listbox. 4.57.0000 Fixed the empty column GPF bug ***************************************************************************