How To Programmatically Add Child Controls to a CoolBar

MORE INFORMATION

The Child property of a CoolBar Band must be a control that is contained by the CoolBar. Therefore, while the Container argument of the Add method is optional, it must be supplied in order to add a Child control to a Band of a CoolBar control.

The Add method of the Controls Collection has these parts:

   object.Add(ProgID, name, container)
				

Adding a control in this way does not make the control automatically appear because it is not yet a Child of a Band. Therefore, after you add the control, set the Child property of the appropriate Band to the new control. The control now appears. Note that a Band can only have one Child, so attempting to set the Child property of a Band that already has a Child control produces an error. See the REFERENCES section of this article for more information.

Step By Step Example

1. Start a new Standard EXE project. Form1 is created by default.
2. Select Components from the Projects menu, select "Microsoft Windows Common Controls-3 6.0", and click OK.
3. Place a CoolBar control onto Form1. It has three Bands by default.
4. Add two CommandButtons to Form1.
5. Place the following code into the form's module:

         Private Sub Command1_Click()
            Dim MyCtrl As Object
            ' Add a new CommandButton to the first Band.
            Set MyCtrl = Controls.Add("VB.CommandButton", "cmdTest", CoolBar1)
            MyCtrl.Caption = "Test Button"
            Set CoolBar1.Bands(1).Child = MyCtrl  ' place on first Band
            ' Add a new TextBox to the second Band.
            Set MyCtrl = Controls.Add("VB.TextBox", "txtTest", CoolBar1)
            MyCtrl.Text = "Testing Text"
            Set CoolBar1.Bands(2).Child = MyCtrl  ' place on second Band
         End Sub
   
         Private Sub Command2_Click()
            Dim MyCtrl As Object
            ' Add a new CheckBox to a new Band.
            Set MyCtrl = Controls.Add("VB.CheckBox", "ckTest", CoolBar1)
            MyCtrl.Caption = "Check Test"
            CoolBar1.Bands.Add Child:=MyCtrl, Visible:=True    ' add a Band
            CoolBar1.Bands(CoolBar1.Bands.Count).Width = 1000  ' expand it
         End Sub
   
   						

6. Run the project and click Command1. You will see a new CommandButton appear in the first Band and a new TextBox appear in the second Band.
7. Click Command2 and a fourth Band is added with a new CheckBox. Note that when you set the Width property of a Band through code, it is not larger than the minimum necessary to accommodate its Child control, but you can resize it with the Mouse.