Customizing Common Controls

Other versions of this page are also available for the following:

• Windows Embedded CE 6.0 R3

8/28/2008

You can customize a subset of the common controls when you create a skin. To customize a common control, change the code contained in the appropriate file in the %_WINCEROOT%\Public\Common\Oak\Drivers\Skinnableui\Commctrl directory. Each control corresponds to a C++ class. You customize the UI by changing the implementation of the methods that these classes contain.

The following table shows the common controls that you can customize, the name of the class that contains the methods that you must implement to customize the control, the file that contains the implementation of those methods, and which elements of the control can be customized.

Common control	Class	File name	Customizable element
Header control	HeaderView_t	Headerview.cpp	Position of the header bitmap and text. Border of buttons that the header control contains. Height of the header control.
Progress bar	ProgressBarView_t	Progressview.cpp	Code used to draw the entire progress bar.
Rebar	RebarView_t	Rebarview.cpp	Gripper. Spacing between items in the rebar.
Tab control	TabView_t	Tabview.cpp	Code for drawing the tab control.
Toolbar	ToolBarView_t	Toolbarview.cpp	Location at which a button image on the toolbar is drawn when the user presses or checks the corresponding button. Border of buttons on the toolbar. Drop-down arrows on the toolbar. Bounding rectangle of the face of a button on the toolbar. Amount of horizontal and vertical space that the border and sides on a button on the toolbar occupy. System-defined bitmaps displayed on toolbar buttons.
Trackbar	TrackBarView_t	Trackbarview.cpp	Channel, focus rectangle, thumb, and tick marks for the trackbar.
Up-down	UpdownView_t	Updownview.cpp	Style for the buttons, borders, and the bounding rectangle.

Note

You can customize a command band by modifying the rebar and toolbar.

Note

You can customize the command bar by changing the buttons and combo boxes that it contains. For information about customizing buttons and combo boxes, see Customizing Window Controls.

Note

You can customize a property sheet by adapting its tab controls.

You cannot customize the following common controls by using a skin:

• Date and time picker
• Image list
• List view
• Month calendar control
• Status bar
• ToolTip control
• Tree view

The %_WINCEROOT%\Public\Common\Oak\Drivers\Skinnableui\Commctrl directory also contains the Commctrlview.cpp file, which implements the CommCtrlView_t::Init method. You can implement this method to perform any one-time initializations that you need when customizing the common controls.

After you make changes to the code, you must make the following changes to the environment variables in the Platform Builder build system before you create a run-time image.

• Set REPLACE_ROOT to the path of the file that contains the replaced or modified code.
• Set REPLACE_MODULES to commctrl.

Depending on whether or not resource files are associated with the library file, set one of the following environment variables.

• If the list of replacement libraries have resource files associated with them, set COMMCTRL_REPLACE. The following code example shows the syntax. COMMCTRL_REPLACE=commctrlviewxp. This will include commctrlview.lib and commctrlview.res.
• If the list of replacement libraries do not have resource files associated with them, set COMMCTRL_REPLACE_COMPONENTS. The following code example shows the syntax.COMMCTRL_REPLACE_COMPONENTS=commctrlview. This will include commctrlview.lib only.

See Also

Concepts

Working with Common Controls
Creating a Skin
How to Customize the Appearance of Common Controls