Customizing the Header Item's Appearance

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By setting the dwStyle parameter when you first create a header control (CHeaderCtrl::Create), you can define the appearance and behavior of header items or of the header control itself.

Here is a sampling of the styles you can set, and their purpose:

To make a header item look like a pushbutton, use the HDS_BUTTONS style.
Use this style if you want to carry out actions in response to mouse clicks on a header item, such as sorting data by a particular column, as is done in Microsoft Outlook.
To give the header items a "hot tracking" appearance when the mouse cursor passes over them, use the HDS_HOTTRACK style.
Hot tracking displays a 3D outline as the pointer passes over an item in an otherwise flat bar.
To indicate that the header control should be hidden, use the HDS_HIDDEN style.
The HDS_HIDDEN style indicates that the header control is intended to be used as a data container and not a visual control. This style does not automatically hide the control but, instead, affects the behavior of CHeaderCtrl::Layout. The value returned in the cy member of the WINDOWPOS structure will be zero indicating that the control should not be visible to the user.

For more information about these properties, see Items in the Platform SDK. For information about adding items to a header control, see Adding Items to the Header Control.