VBXpress - VBX Control Design System INTRODUCTION Finally, anyone can create custom sliders, tool bars, floating flyouts, tool palettes, rocker buttons, spin buttons, and graphic command buttons just like those in the most sophisticated Windows applications. VBXpress makes it happen. And without any programming! With just a few mouse clicks, the exclusive VBXpress Control Editor assembles your image, color, text, behavior, and style selections into a new screen object. Customize your control by choosing from a rich variety of available events and properties. And you don't even have to read the manual to get started. The exclusive VBXpress Conductor guides you step-by-step to design your control in less than one minute! Then VBXpress instantly turns your design into a real VBX custom control -- compatible with Visual Basic, Visual C++, or any VBX- conforming development system. It's that easy! This one package contains all you need to start making entirely original VBX custom controls the easy, fast, reliable, VBXpress way! WHAT IS VBXpress? VBXpress is the Custom Control Design System that creates real VBX screen object controls without any programming. VBXpress lets you create entirely original VBX custom controls compatible with Visual Basic, Visual C++, dBASE for Windows, PowerBuilder, or any other development system which can use VBXs. And the new custom controls you create appear in the Visual Basic Toolbox, or in the Control Palette of Visual C++ App Studio. Custom controls are really extremely simple in concept. In a Windows-conforming program, a control is a section of the screen containing an image. The image is modified in response to use input in the form of mouse or keyboard input. When the user clicks the mouse on the screen region, the underlying code determines where the user clicked. If it was inside of the boundaries of the control, the code responds to visually clue the user by changing the appearance of the image. Custom Control VBXs are a special type of dynamic link library, or DLL. A VBX contains routines which are pre-compiled and encapsulated. Once loaded, you simply drags-and-drops the VBX control from the Toolbox or Control Palette onto a form just as with standard command button or text box controls. VBX controls are linked to a program at design time. By adding the VBX to your program, the encapsulated functionality of the VBX is made available. However, the VBX remains a separate disk file and does not become a part of your compiled EXE. Creating new custom controls has always been extremely difficult because of the complexity of the Windows SDK, CDK and general Windows development environment. VBXpress changes all that! All knowledge of the SDK and the CDK needed to make new controls is built into VBXpress. VBXpress is not a code compiler, nor does it accept or generate intermediate Basic or C code. It builds new VBX file directly from the definitions you specify within the Control Editor. Using VBXpress, you can simply and easily create entirely original tool bars, command buttons with graphics, spin buttons, slider controls and tool palettes--without writing one single line of code! In this way, you never have to worry about the technical details, because VBXpress takes you through every step to create your own custom controls. VBXpress uses Windows API calls to operate exactly the same way as many other Windows custom controls operate. It also uses the same control logic as lots of modern popular leading-edge software programs - like Norton Desktop for Windows, Lotus AmiPro, Microsoft PowerPoint, Word for Windows, Excel, Corel Draw and many others. The controls you create using VBXpress are indistinguishable from those in many commercial Windows programs! And VBXpress does it all for you, automatically! TYPES OF CONTROLS SUPPORTED VBXpress creates four basic types of controls: Command Buttons (with or without text and graphics) Slider Controls (Horizontal & Vertical) Tool Bars (Horizontal & Vertical) Tool Palettes However, with all the options, combinations, and varieties available through VBXpress, the number of controls you could create is infinite! THE VBXpress CONTROL EDITOR The VBXPRESS.EXE program (VBXpress Control Editor ) defines and creates slider controls, custom horizontal or vertical tool bars and command buttons for you in seconds. VBXpress offers the ability to create many types of original controls. The VBXpress Control Editor accepts all your definitions for the new control with an entirely point-and-click, menu-driven environment. There is never any programming. The Control Editor lets you actually see your control as you build it, so you can test out what it will look and act like in the final program. You can even specify control behavior based on which event procedures you want your controls to respond to. For example, you can have a free-floating tool palette of buttons cascade out from a tool bar, creating a powerful graphical input structure. The VBXpress Control Editor contains a complete on-line and context-sensitive help system so you always know what to do. The VBXpress Conductor The easiest way to get started creating your first control with the Control Editor is to run is the exclusive VBXpress Conductor. The Conductor shows you the step-by-step method for building a new control with an on-screen, push-button form. It keeps track of what you've done and tells you exactly what to do next. No more menu searching or learning by trial-and-error. You don't even have to read the manual to build your first VBX control! ACTION STYLES Each new control object you create with VBXpress may have one or more action styles. The available action styles are: CommandButton DelayButton ToggleButton NoWait OptionButton VerticalSlide SpinButton HorizontalSlide DIMENSIONS The dimensions of the new control,and each button on it, are completely up to you. With a few mouse click you define how many buttons are on the control, a button's size, number of rows and columns, whether it's floating or not, and whether there's a caption. COLORS New controls need color. The control's face, highlight, shadow, and background colors are all definable from the pull-down color menu. APPLYING TEXT AND GRAPHICS VBXpress supplies four palettes of ready-to-insert images you can instantly add to a new control. You can also add images created by any other bitmap image program by just copying it to the ClipBoard. And, it's just as easy to apply text to a control, using any available font or color. CUSTOMIZING THE CONTROL Depending on the control, VBXpress presents a rich set of properties, many of which can be set when the control is defined. VBXpress controls are also compatible with standard Windows methods. And, just like any other control, you can write code in your program to respond to the events triggered by the action of a VBXpress control. VBXpress controls support these Properties: About Caption Float MaxVal Style BdyClick Clicks hBMP MinVal TabIndex BorderStyle Cols hDC MousePointer TabStop BtnCnt DragIcon hWnd Name Tag BtnPtr DragMode Index Parent Top BtnState Enabled Left Rows Value Visible VBXpress controls support these Methods: Drag Move Refresh SetFocus VBXpress controls support these Events: ButtonOver DragDrop KeyPress MouseMove ButtonPress DragOver KeyUp MouseUp Click GotFocus LostFocus SliderChange DblClick KeyDown MouseDown You can even define a control as a runtime-only demonstration version, or insert an About Box message! SPECIFYING THE CONTROL ICON VBXpress lets you create a custom image to represent your new control in Visual Basic's Toolbox or the Control Palette of Visual C++ App Studio. Be creative! You can create the bitmap in any graphics editor. SAVE THE CONTROL AND MAKE VBX The control resource definition file holds all the information about your news control and is saved as a VBM file. You can even re-load a VBM file into the Control Editor to further define or change your control. Then with one mouse click, VBXpress actually creates the VBX file. In just a few seconds, your new VBX control is ready to run! It's that simple! TECHNICAL VBXpress requires Microsoft Windows Version 3.1 or later. The files created by VBXpress are genuine VBX files designed in accordance with the Visual Basic version 1.0 specification for VBXs. As such, they are compatible with Visual Basic version 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0, with Visual C++, and with any other VBX-compatible language or program development system. COMPATIBILITY WITH VB/Magic Controls The VBM files created by AJS Publishing's VB/Magic Controls are interchangeable with the VBM files created by VBXpress. VB/Magic Controls is the system for creating new controls for Visual Basic. Controls created with VB/Magic allow a greater flexibility of customization and manipulation at runtime than is possible with VBX technology. And VB/Magic's controls can be completely embedded within your EXE file - there are no external files to distribute with your program. VB/Magic Controls is for use with Visual Basic for Windows only. LICENSE The VBX files you create with VBXpress may be used or distributed without royalties or attribution. ORDER INFORMATION VBXpress includes a complete 120 page manual, the exclusive VBXpress Conductor, on-line help system, sample controls, usable VBX files, and unlimited free technical support. Only $299.00. To place your order, just call AJS Publishing, Inc: (800)992-3383 (310)215-9145 in California 9:00 am - 5:00 pm Pacific Time. Or fax your order to: (310)215-9135 (24 hours) Or mail to: AJS Publishing, Inc. P.O. Box 83220 Los Angeles, CA 90083 VBXpress is also available from leading software dealers. ORDER VBXpress by mailing or faxing the following: Name ________________________________________________________ Company _____________________________________________________ Address _____________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________ Phone ( ______ ) ______ - _____________ VBXpress Custom Control Design System $299.00 supplied on 3.5" HD diskette Shipping UPS Ground (within US) $6.00 UPS 2ND Day (within US) $10.00 UPS Next Day (within US) $17.00 ________ Air Parcel (International) $12.00 Federal Express (International) $55.00 California Residents please add appropriate Sales Tax ________ Total $ ________ Payment Check or Money Order (Payable to AJS Publishing, Inc.) Visa MasterCard Amex _________________________________Exp____/____ Signature ___________________________________________ AJS Publishing, Inc. (800)992-3383 P.O. Box 83220 (310)215-9145 in California Los Angeles, CA 90083 (310)215-9135 (24 hour FAX) In Germany, Austria, and German-speaking Switzerland contact: Zoschke Data GmbH Voice: 49 4344 6166 Bahnhofstraáe 3 Fax: 49 4344 6162 D-24217 Sch”nberg/Holstein CIS: 71340,2051 Germany