Knowledge Base

FIX: Controls Cannot Be Added to Toolbar Programmatically

Article ID: 172343

Article Last Modified on 6/24/2004

Microsoft Visual Basic 5.0 Learning Edition, when used with:
- Microsoft Windows NT 4.0
- Microsoft Windows 95
Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 Learning Edition, when used with:
- Microsoft Windows NT 4.0
- Microsoft Windows 95
Microsoft Visual Basic 5.0 Professional Edition, when used with:
- Microsoft Windows NT 4.0
- Microsoft Windows 95
Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 Professional Edition, when used with:
- Microsoft Windows NT 4.0
- Microsoft Windows 95
Microsoft Visual Basic 5.0 Enterprise Edition, when used with:
- Microsoft Windows NT 4.0
- Microsoft Windows 95
Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 Enterprise Edition, when used with:
- Microsoft Windows NT 4.0
- Microsoft Windows 95
Microsoft Visual Basic 4.0 Standard Edition, when used with:
- Microsoft Windows NT 4.0
- Microsoft Windows 95
Microsoft Visual Basic 4.0 Professional Edition, when used with:
- Microsoft Windows NT 4.0
- Microsoft Windows 95
Microsoft Visual Basic 4.0 32-Bit Enterprise Edition, when used with:
- Microsoft Windows NT 4.0
- Microsoft Windows 95
Microsoft Visual InterDev 1.0 Standard Edition, when used with:
- Microsoft Windows NT 4.0
- Microsoft Windows 95

This article was previously published under Q172343

SYMPTOMS

With Visual Basic, you may add controls to a Toolbar control by creating a placeholder button on the toolbar and then setting the control to the same position. If you use the Comctl32.ocx that ships with Visual Studio 97 and Visual Basic 5.0, or MSCOMCTL.OCX that ships with Visual Studio 6.0 and Visual Basic 6.0, the control may unexpectedly appear behind the toolbar.

RESOLUTION

To work around this problem, create a pause with DoEvents after you set all the controls in place and then set the Toolbar control to the bottom of the ZOrder.

NOTE: This workaround does not apply to non-windowed controls, such as a Label or a Shape. To use this workaround with non-windows controls, the controls must be contained in a PictureBox.

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a bug in the Microsoft products listed at the beginning of this article. For Visual Studio 6.0 and Visual Basic 6.0 using MSCOMCTL.OCX, this behavior has been resolved with Service Pack 3.

MORE INFORMATION

Steps to Reproduce Behavior

Start a new Visual Basic project.
Click Components on the Project menu and check "Microsoft Windows Common Controls 5.0."
Add a Toolbar control and a ComboBox control to Form1.

Add the following code to Form1:

      Private Sub Form_load()

      Dim btn As Variant

         Me.Show

         'Add a separator to the toolbar
         Toolbar1.Buttons.Add Style:=tbrSeparator

         'Add a Placeholder to the toolbar.
         Set btn = Toolbar1.Buttons.Add(Key:="ComboBox", _
            Style:=tbrPlaceholder)
         btn.Width = 2000

'Place the combo box on top of the Placeholder

         With Combo1
            .Width = btn.Width
            .Top = btn.Top
            .Left = btn.Left
            .ZOrder 0
         End With
      End Sub

Press F5 to run the application. Notice that Combo1 does not appear over the Placeholder on Toolbar1.
To correct this problem, add the following code just before End Sub of the Form_Load event procedure:
```
      DoEvents
      Toolbar1.ZOrder 1

					
```

Keywords: kbbug kbfix kbcontrol kbvs600sp3fix KB172343