Edit Box Cue Banner not working in compiled exe

[SassyCat]

Hi Timo,

I think there is a bug with edit controls, their cue banner does not work in compiled VB6 apps. Have a look at bellow screenshot:



The one without the banner is a VB6 exe.

Is there any workaround?

Also, another "bug" is that when using upper/lower case conversion, cue banner is also affected which doesn't make much sense. One uses character formatting only for input pre-validation, while cue is used as a helpful hint and should not be affected by any format/validation. Luckily password mask property does not turn cue banner into dots as well . For example, you bind edit box to a "server name" field which can only be uppercase so character conversion is useful here, but you don't want "SERVER NAME" instead of "Server name" as a cue banner .

[TiKu]

Hi Timo,

I think there is a bug with edit controls, their cue banner does not work in compiled VB6 apps. Have a look at bellow screenshot:



The one without the banner is a VB6 exe.

Is there any workaround?

On which version of Windows have you tried it? Did you specify a manifest for the exe file? Do you call InitCommonControls? Do not forget that cue banners are a feature of comctl32.dll version 6.x.

Also, another "bug" is that when using upper/lower case conversion, cue banner is also affected which doesn't make much sense. One uses character formatting only for input pre-validation, while cue is used as a helpful hint and should not be affected by any format/validation. Luckily password mask property does not turn cue banner into dots as well . For example, you bind edit box to a "server name" field which can only be uppercase so character conversion is useful here, but you don't want "SERVER NAME" instead of "Server name" as a cue banner .

Well, this is a feature of Windows.

[SassyCat]

I had no idea that cue banner is a feature of common controls! I will do more research about it. I do call InitCommonControls and use manifest but its likely that something's wrong with my own window. Thanks for the reply!

I will get back when I find more info. It was tested on Windows7 btw.

[TiKu]

I had no idea that cue banner is a feature of common controls!

Well, the whole text box control is a common control, at least starting with comctl32.dll 6.0 (before this time it was implemented in user32.dll). My ActiveX controls are only COM wrappers around the Windows native controls.

I do call InitCommonControls and use manifest but its likely that something's wrong with my own window.

If you call InitCommonControls (in Sub Main or Form_Initialize I suppose) and use a manifest, then it should work. But maybe it's a problem that exists only if Windows is set to classic skin. I use Windows 7 myself, but with Aero Glass and here the cue banners are working well in the exe.
The last thing that comes to my mind is multi line mode. Cue banners work in single line mode only. But then it would not work in the IDE either.