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ActiveVBA™ Pack

ActiveX(TM) Controls For Visual Basic™ for Applications

Version 1.0

December, 1999

(C) Copyright Sheridan Software Systems, Inc., 1997-1999

35 Pinelawn Road

Melville, N.Y. 11747 USA

Voice (516) 753-0985

Fax (516) 753-3661

e-mail support.activevbapack@shersoft.com

Internet http://www.shersoft.com

This document contains release notes for ActiveVBA Pack. Information in this document is more current than that in the on-line Help.

Note: Consult the help file (VBAPACK1.HLP) for information on how to use the features of ActiveVBA Pack.

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Control Notes

ActiveVBA Pack consists of ActiveX controls designed for the Visual Basic for Applications environment. VBA places certain limitations on the behavior of ActiveX controls, whether for security reasons or due to architectural issues. As a result, you should be aware of certain rules that govern the use of ActiveVBA Pack controls. If you have used other Sheridan products, you may find that the behavior of ActiveVBA Pack is different from what you are familiar with.

In VBA, controls placed on top of either the ssVBAFrame or ssVBAPanel are not actually inside of those controls. They are drawn on top of the controls based on Windows ZOrder. Because of this, when you activate the ssVBAFrame or ssVBAPanel (by double clicking it at design time), the frame/panel comes to the top of the ZOrder. This makes it seem like the other controls have disappeared. When you deactivate the controls by clicking else where they will return to the correct ZOrder.

On occasion some transparent controls may not repaint correctly at design time. If this occurs close and then reopen the form to get the correct drawing. If that is not successful you can select the control you want at the bottom and right click on it to bring up the context menu. Then select Move to Back to change its ZOrder.

 

Supported Environments

ActiveVBA Pack controls will only operate in the Visual Basic for Applications environment. They are not licensed for, and will not work in, the stand-alone version of Visual Basic or in other development languages. You cannot use the ActiveVBA Pack controls to develop for a web-based environment, such as Internet Explorer.

ActiveVBA Pack is only supported in the version of Visual Basic for Applications included with Office 2000 (VBA version 6) or later versions. Although it is possible to use ActiveVBA Pack controls in versions of VBA prior to Office 2000, the controls have not been tested and may not work outside of Office 2000, or may work in some applications but not others. VBA version 6 (included with Office 2000) is the first version that provides a complete, cross-application platform that is compatible with ActiveVBA Pack.

Office 97 (VBA version 5) is not a supported environment for ActiveVBA Pack. Sheridan Software does not support ActiveVBA Pack in any VBA environment previous to version 6 (Office 2000.)

Containership and Z-Order Issues

Containership is not supported in the ActiveVBA Pack controls. Therefore you cannot place controls "inside" an ActiveVBA Pack control such as the SSVBAFrame or the SSVBAPanel. However, it is possible to place other ActiveVBA Pack controls on top of these controls (higher in the Z-Order) to give the appearance of containership and provide visual cues as to how controls are grouped.

A typical use of containers is to isolate different groups of option buttons on a form so that you can have several sets of mutually-exclusive choices that do not affect one another. The SSVBAOption button includes a GroupName property that determines which SSVBAOptions operate as a mutually exclusive group. An SSVBAOption control with its GroupName property set will interact only with other SSVBAOption controls that have the same GroupName value. This property obviates the need for a separate container control. The SSVBARibbon control has a GroupNumber property that serves the same purpose for that control.

In the Visual Basic for Applications environment, the ActiveVBA Pack controls are windowed controls - each one has its own window handle, which the environment can use to refer to the control. In contrast, the standard controls that are included with VBA are windowless controls; they do not have individual window handles. This directly affects the Z-Ordering of controls on a VBA user form. A windowless control will always appear below a windowed control in the Z-Order. There is no way to place a windowed control "underneath" a windowless one. Therefore, you cannot place any of the default VBA controls on top of an ActiveVBA Pack control.

If you want to place controls on top of an ActiveVBA Pack control (such as the SSVBAFrame or SSVBAPanel) you must use another ActiveVBA Pack control or other ActiveX control.

Transparency

When a control is set to transparent BackStyle the UserForm has to be closed and re-opened to see the transparency.

Delay values:

Note that when setting PictureAnimationDelay and MarqueeDelay properties the resolution under Windows 9x is 55 milliseconds, under Windows NT it is 10ms. If the delay is set to less than the resolution, the delay is equivalent to 0 and will be affected by any other applications using timers.

Transitioning certain controls does not work:

The way the Transition control works is that it sends a WM_PAINT message to all of its sibling controls with a memory dc in the wParam. Almost all controls correctly render themselves into this dc. However, certain controls don’t behave properly and unfortunately there is nothing that the Transition control can do to get around the problem.

Regions that are too complex for ssVBASplash, ssVBARibbon and ssVBACommand:

The ssVBASplash control uses its Picture property to create an irregularly shaped region for its parent form. The ssVBARibbon and ssVBACommand controls use their Shape property (which is also a picture) to create an irregularly shaped region for their windows. There are situations where the region can be too complex for the OS to handle. This is especially true under Windows 95 and 98 in 256-color mode. If you have an image with large areas of a dithered color and one of the solid colors that makes up the dither is the transparent color (which is taken from the bottom/left corner pixel of the control) then the creation of the region may fail. When this happens at design time the ssVBASplash control will display the following message:

"The window region could not be created which may indicate that it is too complex."

The ssVBASplash control uses the color value of the lower left corner pixel as the transparent color. If this color is also used as part of a dithered color that covers a large area of the image the region may contain too many very small transparent areas. This happens most often in 256-color mode.

If the control's Picture property is set to an icon or metafile try setting the BackColor property to a SOLID color that is not used in dithered areas of the image.

If the Picture property is set to a bitmap try changing the lower left corner pixel to a color that isn't used in dithered areas.

Note: If you are developing under NT the window region creation may succeed but may fail when the application is run under 95 or 98. When this happens at runtime, no error message is displayed and the window reverts to being rectangular.

For more detailed information, consult the Known Control Issues section of the help file (VBAPACK1.HLP).

Included Samples

Sample projects are located in the Samples subfolder of your installation folder, and are arranged in separate directories by project. Brief descriptions of the projects can be found in the file called Samples Descriptions.htm, located in the Samples folder.

 

 System Requirements:

 

ActiveVBA Pack is a trademark of Sheridan Software Systems, Inc.
ActiveX and Visual Basic are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation