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How to Create a Trackbar

  • Article

When the trackbar is created, both its range and its selection range are initialized. The page size is also set at this time.

What you need to know

Technologies

Prerequisites

  • C/C++
  • Windows User Interface Programming

Instructions

Create a Trackbar

The following example shows how to create a trackbar with the TBS_AUTOTICKS and TBS_ENABLESELRANGE styles.

// CreateTrackbar - creates and initializes a trackbar. 
// 
// Global variable
//     g_hinst - instance handle
//
HWND WINAPI CreateTrackbar( 
    HWND hwndDlg,  // handle of dialog box (parent window) 
    UINT iMin,     // minimum value in trackbar range 
    UINT iMax,     // maximum value in trackbar range 
    UINT iSelMin,  // minimum value in trackbar selection 
    UINT iSelMax)  // maximum value in trackbar selection 
{ 

    InitCommonControls(); // loads common control's DLL 

    hwndTrack = CreateWindowEx( 
        0,                               // no extended styles 
        TRACKBAR_CLASS,                  // class name 
        "Trackbar Control",              // title (caption) 
        WS_CHILD | 
        WS_VISIBLE | 
        TBS_AUTOTICKS | 
        TBS_ENABLESELRANGE,              // style 
        10, 10,                          // position 
        200, 30,                         // size 
        hwndDlg,                         // parent window 
        ID_TRACKBAR,                     // control identifier 
        g_hinst,                         // instance 
        NULL                             // no WM_CREATE parameter 
        ); 

    SendMessage(hwndTrack, TBM_SETRANGE, 
        (WPARAM) TRUE,                   // redraw flag 
        (LPARAM) MAKELONG(iMin, iMax));  // min. & max. positions
        
    SendMessage(hwndTrack, TBM_SETPAGESIZE, 
        0, (LPARAM) 4);                  // new page size 

    SendMessage(hwndTrack, TBM_SETSEL, 
        (WPARAM) FALSE,                  // redraw flag 
        (LPARAM) MAKELONG(iSelMin, iSelMax)); 
        
    SendMessage(hwndTrack, TBM_SETPOS, 
        (WPARAM) TRUE,                   // redraw flag 
        (LPARAM) iSelMin); 

    SetFocus(hwndTrack); 

    return hwndTrack; 
}

Using Trackbar Controls