How to Create a Setup-Like Status Bar in Visual Basic

 Last reviewed: March 1, 1996
Article ID: Q147809
The information in this article applies to:
  • Standard, Professional, and Enterprise Editions of Microsoft Visual Basic for Windows, version 4.0

SUMMARY

Many applications use a status bar to display the progress of an installation or other lengthy process. Often the percent completed is printed in the middle of the bar and it changes color as the status bar passes over it. This article illustrates how to achieve this effect using Visual Basic for Windows. As a note, the professional and enterprise edition contain a progress bar control that could be used instead. For Win16 applications, the sample calldlls in vb\samples\calldlls uses shape controls to achieve the same effect.

MORE INFORMATION

The simplest way to specify the range of the status bar is to determine what the zero-based range will be and specify that value as the ScaleWidth of the horizontal scroll bar. Then you don't have to scale the data for each new sample.

Changing the color of the percentage displayed within the picture box is done by specifying the DrawMode as Not XOR Pen with a compatible background. When the bar is drawn, an exclusive OR is performed on each pixel. If the pixel is red, it is made white and vice versa. The text must be placed first because Print does not support DrawMode. The following program demonstrates how to display a red status bar with a red or white text message centered in it. Colors other than red are specified by changing the ForeColor property of the Picture Box Control.

Step-by-Step Example

  1. Start a new project in Visual Basic. Form1 is created by default.

  2. Add a picture box (Picture1) and a command button (Command1) to the form.

  3. Add the following code to the Form_Load event: 

    Private Sub Form_Load()
Picture1.AutoRedraw = True Picture1.BackColor = &H80000003& 
Picture1.DrawMode   = 10
Picture1.FillStyle = 0 Picture1.ForeColor = &H00000080 
End Sub

  • Add the following code to the general declarations section of Form1:

    Dim tenth as Long #If Win32 Then 

    Private Declare Function BitBlt Lib "GDI32" (ByVal hDestDC As _
    Integer, ByVal X As Integer, ByVal Y As Integer, ByVal nWidth As _ Integer, ByVal nHeight As Integer, ByVal hSrcDC As Integer, _ ByVal XSrc As Integer, ByVal YSrc As Integer, ByVal dwRop As _ Long) As Integer #Else 
    Private Declare Function BitBlt Lib "GDI" (ByVal hDestDC As _
    Integer, ByVal X As Integer, ByVal Y As Integer, ByVal nWidth _ As Integer, ByVal nHeight As Integer, ByVal hSrcDC As Integer, _ ByVal XSrc As Integer, ByVal YSrc As Integer, ByVal dwRop As _ Long) As Integer #End If 
    Sub UpdateStatus (FileBytes As Long)
'--------------------------------------------------------------------
' Update the Picture1 status bar
'--------------------------------------------------------------------
    Static progress as long Const SRCCOPY = &HCC0020 Dim Txt$ progress = progress + FileBytes If progress > Picture1.ScaleWidth Then progress = Picture1.ScaleWidth End If Txt$ = Format$(CLng((progress / Picture1.ScaleWidth) * 100)) + "%" Picture1.Cls Picture1.CurrentX = _ (Picture1.ScaleWidth - Picture1.TextWidth(Txt$)) \ 2 Picture1.CurrentY = _ (Picture1.ScaleHeight - Picture1.TextHeight(Txt$)) \ 2 Picture1.Print Txt$ Picture1.Line (0,0)-(progress,Picture1.ScaleHeight), _ Picture1.ForeColor,BF r = BitBlt(Picture1.hDC, 0, 0,Picture1.ScaleWidth, _ Picture1.ScaleHeight, Picture1.hDC, 0, 0, SRCCOPY) 
    End Sub

  • Add the following code to Click event procedure of Command1: 

    Private Sub Command1_Click()
    Picture1.ScaleWidth = 109 tenth = 10 For i = 1 to 10 Call UpdateStatus(tenth) x = timer While Timer < x + .75 DoEvents Wend Next 
    End Sub

  • Press the F5 key to run the program, and then click the Command1 button.

    REFERENCES

    Visual Basic Setup Wizard file SETUP1.BAS.

    • Additional reference words: vb4win 4.00
    KBCategory: kbprg kbcode
    KBSubcategory: PrgOther




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    Last reviewed: March 1, 1996
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