Changing Theme Properties Programmatically in Microsoft FrontPage 2000

James M. Gordon
Microsoft Corporation

November 1999

Applies To: Microsoft FrontPage 2000

Summary: The Microsoft FrontPage 2000 Visual Basic object model provides support for manipulation of theme properties across a web or group of webs. This article describes how to change properties of themes programmatically, details the available options, and discusses the limitations of the object model for themes customization. (12 printed pages)

Introduction

You can change a number of theme properties programmatically, including the active graphics property, the use of cascading style sheets or vivid colors, and the display of a background image. You can also change the theme applied to a Web, WebFile, or PageWindow object programmatically, and you can find out which theme is currently applied to the object by getting the ThemeName constant from the Web, WebFile, or PageWindow object. For a complete description of the constants, see the FpThemeProperties enumerated type, which is documented in the ThemeProperties property or the ApplyTheme method in the Microsoft® FrontPage® online Help. The ThemeProperties property and the ApplyTheme method are used in the sample application described in this article.

Although you can change several theme properties programmatically, the Microsoft Visual Basic® object model does not expose all of the functionality of the FrontPage theme design environment. The options for modifying colors, graphics, and text exposed by the FrontPage Themes dialog box (on the Format menu, click Theme) are not available through the object model.

Changing Theme Properties Across Multiple Webs

The sample application, Theme Properties Wizard, demonstrates how to change theme properties for all open webs in the Webs collection or for a single web selected from a list of webs in the Webs collection. You can extend the capabilities of the sample application by providing a multiple-selection list box that lists all of the available webs and enables the user to select one or more webs from the list. You can also extend the application to apply custom themes to multiple webs, as discussed in the “Applying Custom Themes” section, later in this article.

The main advantage of the application is that it uses the object model to apply theme property changes to multiple webs without the need to apply the changes one web at a time by using the Themes dialog box. This can be particularly useful to web administrators who may need to roll out uniform theme changes across a number of webs.

To change themes and theme properties across multiple webs, the sample application iterates through all webs in the Webs collection and applies the selected theme or theme properties to each web. When the user selects a single web, the sample application applies the theme or theme properties only to the web selected from the drop-down list.

Creating and Using the Sample Application

The sample application consists of a one-page form and a module containing the controls and code necessary to process changes to themes and theme properties for a specific web or across all webs in the Webs collection.

To create the form, from the Insert menu in the Microsoft Visual Basic Editor choose User Form. Microsoft Visual Basic creates a new form. Populate the new form with the objects and controls described in the following table. If you would like to learn more about Microsoft Forms, please refer to the Microsoft Forms Reference available through the Visual Basic online Help.

The Code Behind the Form

Most of the code needed to process the user’s selections is in the main procedure, ThemePropertiesWizard. There are a few things, however, that must be added to the form to enable and populate lists and to hand off control of the form to the main procedure. This section describes the code behind the form controls that makes it all work.

Choosing a web

If the user chooses to set properties on a single web, you need to find out which web to process. An easy way to do this is to populate a drop-down list with all available, open webs on the user’s machine. There’s no need to populate the list if the user has chosen to process all webs, so you can use the Click event of the single web option button to populate the list, as in the following code:

Private Sub optSingleWeb_Click()

    Dim strWebTitle As String
    Dim intCounter As Integer
    Dim intNumWebs As Integer

    lstOpenWebList.Enabled = True

    ‘ Check to see if the list has already been populated.
    If lstOpenWebList.ListCount < 1 Then
        intCounter = 0
        intNumWebs = Webs.Count

        While intCounter < intNumWebs
            strWebTitle = Webs(intCounter).Title
            lstOpenWebList.AddItem (strWebTitle)
            intCounter = intCounter + 1
        Wend
    Else
        ‘ The list has already been populated.
    End If

    ‘ Set the ListIndex property to ensure that the
    ‘ drop-down list displays the first item.
    lstOpenWebList.ListIndex = 0
End Sub

If the list has already been populated, you don’t want to add the items again. Use the ListCount method to determine whether the list is empty and skip the list population routine if there are any items in the list.

If the user chooses not to select a single web and selects the optAllWebs option button, you should disable the list to avoid confusion. (The list selection is not processed when optAllWebs is selected.) The following code, attached to the optAllWebs option button, disables the list.

Private Sub optAllWebs_Click()
    lstOpenWebList.Enabled = False
End Sub

Choosing a theme

If the user chooses to change the theme for the web or webs, you need to find out which theme the user wants to apply. You can build a list of “friendly names” for all application-supplied themes and let the user select the theme from this list. The code that populates the list follows.

Private Sub cbxApplyNewTheme_Click()
‘ When the user checks this checkbox, the drop-down list
‘ is enabled and the user can choose a theme.

    Dim thmFrontPageThemes As Theme
    Dim intCounter As Integer

    If cbxApplyNewTheme Then
        lstThemeList.Enabled = True
    Else
        lstThemeList.Enabled = False
    End If

    ‘ Check to see if the list has already been populated.
    If lstThemeList.ListCount < 1 Then
        For intCounter = 0 To (Application.Themes.Count - 1)
            Set thmFrontPageThemes = Application.Themes(intCounter)
            lstThemeList.AddItem thmFrontPageThemes.Label, intCounter
        Next intCounter
    ‘ The list has already been populated.
    End If
    ‘ Set the ListIndex property to ensure that the 
    ‘ drop-down list displays the first item.
    lstThemeList.ListIndex = 0
End Sub

The Apply Settings command button simply hands off the processing to the ThemePropertiesWizard subroutine and the Close command button ends the program. The code for each of these controls follows.

Private Sub cmdApplySettings_Click()
    Call ThemePropertiesWizard
End Sub

Private Sub cmdClose_Click()
    End
End Sub

Adding Webs to the Webs Collection

The form and the main subroutine require that all webs to be processed be added to the Webs collection. One way to populate the Webs collection is to open all of the webs you want to process in FrontPage. The following procedure opens three webs, which adds the webs to the Webs collection. Alternatively, you can use the Add method of the Webs collection to populate the collection. (Be sure to replace “<your name>“ so the path on your machine is correct.)

Sub PopulateWebsCollection()
    ‘ This procedure opens three webs.
    Webs.Open (“C:/WINNT/Profiles/<your name>/Personal/My Webs/myweb”)
    Webs.Open (“C:/WINNT/Profiles/<your name>/Personal/My Webs/myweb2”)
    Webs.Open (“C:/WINNT/Profiles/<your name>/Personal/My Webs/myweb3”)
End Sub

Applying Theme Properties

The main processing procedure, ThemePropertiesWizard, executes when the user clicks the Apply Settings button on the Theme Properties Wizard form. The procedure evaluates the controls on the form to determine (1) whether the user wants to apply changes to all open webs or to a single web, (2) whether the user wants to apply a new theme and, if so, which theme, and (3) whether the user wants to set one of the theme properties (active graphics, background image, cascading style sheet, or vivid colors). When the procedure completes successfully, it displays a message box. When the user clicks the Close button, the form closes and does not save the user’s settings. The code for the ThemePropertiesWizard procedure follows.

Sub ThemePropertiesWizard()

    ‘ This procedure contains all of the code for the Wizard.
    Dim webSelectedWeb As Web
    Dim strCurrentTheme As String
    Dim strNewTheme As String
    Dim strThemeName As String
    Dim intCounter As Integer
    Dim intMaxWebs As Integer
    Dim lngFpThemeProperties As Long

    ‘ The first thing we need to determine is whether the user
    ‘ wants to change properties in all open webs or a single web.
    ‘ To do this, we test the value of the optAllWebs and 
    ‘ optSingleWeb option buttons. If optSingleWeb is selected,
    ‘ we must display a drop-down list of available webs;
    ‘ if optAllWebs is selected, we leave the drop-down list
    ‘ disabled and continue with the procedure, applying
    ‘ changes to all open webs.

    intCounter = 0
    intMaxWebs = Webs.Count
    lngFpThemeProperties = 0
    strThemeName = ““

    While intCounter < intMaxWebs
        If frmThemePropertiesWizard.optSingleWeb Then
            Set webSelectedWeb = _
                Webs(frmThemePropertiesWizard.lstOpenWebList.Value)
            intMaxWebs = 1
        Else
            Set webSelectedWeb = Webs(intCounter)
        End If

    ‘ Now that we have set webSelectedWeb to the selected web or the
    ‘ first web in the Webs collection, we need to see if the user
    ‘ wants to change the theme. If a new theme has been selected, we
    ‘ update the strThemeName variable with the user’s selection.
    ‘ Otherwise, we will apply the same theme.

    If frmThemePropertiesWizard.cbxApplyNewTheme.Value = True Then 
        strThemeName = Application.Themes _
            (frmThemePropertiesWizard.lstThemeList.ListIndex).Name
    Else
        strThemeName = webSelectedWeb.ThemeProperties(fpThemeName)
    End If
    
    ‘ We need to check the four checkboxes and apply the 
    ‘ selected values to the web(s) by using the ApplyTheme method.

    If frmThemePropertiesWizard.cbxActiveGraphics = True Then
        lngFpThemeProperties = lngFpThemeProperties + _
            fpThemeActiveGraphics
    Else
        lngFpThemeProperties = lngFpThemeProperties + _
            fpThemeNormalGraphics
    End If

    If frmThemePropertiesWizard.cbxBackgroundImage = True Then
        lngFpThemeProperties = lngFpThemeProperties + _
            fpThemeBackgroundImage
    Else
        lngFpThemeProperties = lngFpThemeProperties + _
            fpThemeNoBackgroundImage
    End If

    If frmThemePropertiesWizard.cbxUseCSS = True Then
        lngFpThemeProperties = lngFpThemeProperties + _
            fpThemeCSS
    Else
        lngFpThemeProperties = lngFpThemeProperties + _
            fpThemeNoCSS
    End If

    If frmThemePropertiesWizard.cbxUseVividColors = True Then
        lngFpThemeProperties = lngFpThemeProperties + _
            fpThemeVividColors
    Else
        lngFpThemeProperties = lngFpThemeProperties + _
            fpThemeNormalColors
    End If

    ‘ Next, we apply the changes to the selected web.
    Call webSelectedWeb.ApplyTheme(strThemeName, _
         lngFpThemeProperties)

    ‘ As our last order of business, we need to increment
    ‘ the counter in case the user has decided to apply theme
    ‘ and theme property changes to all open webs.
    intCounter = intCounter + 1

    Wend

    ‘ When the wizard has finished applying all changes, 
    ‘ we notify the user with a simple message box.
    MsgBox “The Theme Properties Wizard has completed successfully.”, _
         , “Theme Properties Wizard”
End Sub

Applying Custom Themes

You can apply themes that you create or modify yourself to any web or webs by creating a custom theme list and enabling the user of the application to choose a theme name from the list. Instead of populating the cbxApplyNewTheme combo box with the list of Application.Themes.Name constants, you can build a list of friendly names for your own custom themes by replacing the code for the cbxApplyNewTheme_Click() event with the following code:

Private Sub cbxApplyNewTheme_Click()
    ‘ When the user checks this checkbox, the drop-down list
    ‘ is enabled and the user can choose a theme.
    If cbxApplyNewTheme Then
        lstThemeList.Enabled = True
    Else
        lstThemeList.Enabled = False
    End If

    ‘ The list of custom themes is populated when
    ‘ the user checks this checkbox.
    ‘ Check to see if the list has already been populated.
    If lstThemeList.ListCount < 1 Then
        lstThemeList.AddItem (“Marketing Department Custom Theme”)
        lstThemeList.AddItem (“R&D Department Custom Theme”)
        lstThemeList.AddItem (“Sales Department Custom Theme”)
    Else
        ‘ The list has already been populated.
    End If
End Sub

Then, to process the user’s selection, you can use the following code to capture the user’s selection. Simply replace the code that processes the list box selection with the following.

If frmThemeAttributeWizard.cbxApplyNewTheme.Value = True Then
    Select Case frmThemeAttributeWizard.lstThemeList.ListIndex
        Case 0
            strThemeName = “mktgcust”
        Case 1
            strThemeName = “RDcust”
        Case 2
            strThemeName = “salecust”
        Case Else
            strThemeName = webSelectedWeb.ThemeProperties(fpThemeName)
    End Select
Else
    strThemeName = webSelectedWeb.ThemeProperties(fpThemeName)
End If