Change the colors and fonts of the form and its controls to the windows default values.

Category:

Forms and Controls

Type:

Snippets

Difficulty:

Intermediate

Author:

Dan McLeran

Version Compatibility: Visual Basic 6

More information:

Use this code during form load to set the application's form's colors and fonts to the user's Windows specified values.

Note: This snippets makes reference to the Microsoft flex grid control. If you want to use the code as written, you must add a reference to this component in your project. Or, you can modify the code to remove the reference to the Flex Grid.

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

Declarations:
Option Explicit

Code:

'Purpose:   To set the form and control colors and fonts to the
'user-selected windows defaults.
'
'Parameters:    frm As Form - Form to modify
'               sErrorMsg As String - Error message string
                'returned on error

'Returns:       True - On success
'               False - On error. Also, sErrorMsg is filled
                        'with the error message
'                       and returned to the calling routine.
'
'Notes:     To extend this code to account for other types
' of controls, just add more ElseIf statements. Example, to
'account for ListBoxes:
'
'   ElseIf TypeOf cntrl Is ListBox Then
'   cntrl.BackColor = vbWindowBackground
'  cntrl.Font = vbWindowText
'
'Author:        Dan McLeran
'Date Created:  08/25/1999
'

Public Function SetToDefaultSysColors(frm As Form, sErrorMsg As _
String) As Boolean
    On Error GoTo ErrSetToDefaultSysColors
    Dim cntrl As Control
    
    'init to failure
    SetToDefaultSysColors = False
    
    'set form properties
    frm.Font = vbWindowText
    
    'set control properties
    For Each cntrl In frm.Controls
        If (TypeOf cntrl Is ComboBox) Or (TypeOf cntrl Is _
         TextBox) Then
            cntrl.BackColor = vbWindowBackground
            cntrl.Font = vbWindowText
        'NOTE: MUST HAVE REFERENCE TO FLEX GRID CONTROL
        'FOR THIS TO WORK
        ElseIf TypeOf cntrl Is MSHFlexGrid Then
            cntrl.CellBackColor = vbWindowBackground
            cntrl.CellFontName = vbWindowText
        ElseIf TypeOf cntrl Is Label Then
            cntrl.Font = vbWindowText
        End If
    Next cntrl
    
    'indicate success
    SetToDefaultSysColors = True
    
SetToDefaultSysColorsExit:
    Exit Function
ErrSetToDefaultSysColors:
    SetToDefaultSysColors = False
    sErrorMsg = "Error number: " & Err.Number & vbCrLf & "Description: " & _
        Err.Description & vbCrLf & "Function - " & modName & _
        ".SetToDefaultSysColors"
    Resume SetToDefaultSysColorsExit
End Function