Microsoft KB Archive/153929

= How To Use Color Dialog from COMDLG32.DLL in VB and Access =

Article ID: 153929

Article Last Modified on 7/13/2004

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APPLIES TO


 * Microsoft Visual Basic 5.0 Professional Edition
 * Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 Professional Edition
 * Microsoft Visual Basic 5.0 Enterprise Edition
 * Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 Enterprise Edition
 * Microsoft Visual Basic 4.0 Standard Edition
 * Microsoft Visual Basic 4.0 Professional Edition
 * Microsoft Visual Basic 4.0 32-Bit Enterprise Edition

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This article was previously published under Q153929



SUMMARY
Making use of the COMDLG32.DLL is a good reuse of resources under Windows because Windows always has COMDLG32.DLL loaded. If you use the COMDLG32.OCX control instead, your program must load the OCX into memory and you must also distribute an additional 90K file to your customers. The OCX control provides an easy-to-use interface to predefined dialog boxes, but is a more expensive hit on performance and resources. To optimize performance and reduce resource usage, you should minimize the use of controls in your applications and use the Win32 API calls directly. Below is a code sample of how to use the Choose Color dialog box in the COMDLG32.DLL.



MORE INFORMATION
1a. Visual Basic: Start a new project. Form1 is created by default.

1b. Access: Open a database and create a new form.

 Add a CommandButton (Command1) to the form.  Add the following code to the General Declarations section of the form: Option Explicit

Private Type CHOOSECOLOR lStructSize As Long hwndOwner As Long hInstance As Long rgbResult As Long lpCustColors As String flags As Long lCustData As Long lpfnHook As Long lpTemplateName As String End Type

Private Declare Function ChooseColorAPI Lib "comdlg32.dll" Alias _ "ChooseColorA" (pChoosecolor As CHOOSECOLOR) As Long

Dim CustomColors As Byte

Private Sub Command1_Click Dim cc As CHOOSECOLOR Dim Custcolor(16) As Long Dim lReturn As Long cc.lStructSize = Len(cc) cc.hwndOwner = Me.hWnd cc.hInstance = 0 cc.lpCustColors = StrConv(CustomColors, vbUnicode) cc.flags = 0 lReturn = ChooseColorAPI(cc) If lReturn <> 0 Then Me.Caption = "RGB Value User Chose: " & Str$(cc.rgbResult) Me.BackColor = cc.rgbResult           ' Visual Basic only **** Me.Section(0).BackColor = cc.rgbResult ' Access only ********** CustomColors = StrConv(cc.lpCustColors, vbFromUnicode) Else MsgBox "User chose the Cancel Button" End If  End Sub

Private Sub Form_Load ReDim CustomColors(0 To 16 * 4 - 1) As Byte Dim i As Integer

For i = LBound(CustomColors) To UBound(CustomColors) CustomColors(i) = 0 Next i  End Sub



4a. Visual Basic: Press the F5 key to run the project.

4b. Access: Use the View|Form menu to open the form and run it.


 * 1) Click the CommandButton and the Color dialog box will be displayed. When you choose a color and press OK, the background color of the form will change to your selected color.

The constant CC_PREVENTFULLOPEN, with a decimal value of 4, can be used in the flags element of the CHOOSECOLOR structure if you wish to prevent the Custom Colors part of the Dialog from being displayed.

NOTE: In the Command1_Click routine above, the code to set the background color of an Access form and a Visual Basic form is slightly different. Both commands are included and commented. Only type the command that is appropriate for the product you are using.

