Add a 3D Effect to Forms, Textboxes, and Labels

Category:

Forms and Controls

Type:

Snippets

Difficulty:

Intermediate

Author:

Adnan Hasanovic

Version Compatibility: Visual Basic 6, Visual Basic 5

More information:

Make 3D forms,text boxes or labels. This example project takes a form object and control as arguments and draws lines around the objects to give them a 3D effect. A demo sub is included.

Instructions: Copy the declarations and code below and paste directly into your VB project.

Declarations:
' (None)

Code:

'Set form's AutoRedraw property toTrue
Sub PaintControl3D(frm As Form, Ctl As Control)
    ' This Sub draws lines around controls to make them 3d
    
    ' darkgrey, upper - horizontal
    frm.Line (Ctl.Left, Ctl.Top - 15)-(Ctl.Left + _
          Ctl.Width, Ctl.Top - 15), &H808080, BF
    ' darkgrey, left - vertical
    frm.Line (Ctl.Left - 15, Ctl.Top)-(Ctl.Left - 15, _
         Ctl.Top + Ctl.Height), &H808080, BF
    ' white, right - vertical
    frm.Line (Ctl.Left + Ctl.Width, Ctl.Top)- _
      (Ctl.Left + Ctl.Width, Ctl.Top + Ctl.Height), &HFFFFFF, BF
    ' white, lower - horizontal
    frm.Line (Ctl.Left, Ctl.Top + Ctl.Height)- _
    (Ctl.Left + Ctl.Width, Ctl.Top + Ctl.Height), &HFFFFFF, BF

End Sub

Sub PaintForm3D(frm As Form)
    ' This Sub draws lines around the Form to make it 3d
    
    ' white, upper - horizontal
    frm.Line (0, 0)-(frm.ScaleWidth, 0), &HFFFFFF, BF
    ' white, left - vertical
    frm.Line (0, 0)-(0, frm.ScaleHeight), &HFFFFFF, BF
    ' darkgrey, right - vertical
    frm.Line (frm.ScaleWidth - 15, 0)-(frm.ScaleWidth - 15, _
       frm.Height), &H808080, BF
    ' darkgrey, lower - horizontal
    frm.Line (0, frm.ScaleHeight - 15)-(frm.ScaleWidth, _
      frm.ScaleHeight - 15), &H808080, BF

End Sub

'DEMO USAGE
'Add 1 label and 1 textbox

Private Sub Form_Load()

Me.AutoRedraw = True
PaintForm3D Me
PaintControl3D Me, Label1  'Label1 is name of label
PaintControl3D Me, Text1   'Text1 is name of textbox

End Sub