Adding Styles

A style affects the appearance and behavior of a window. Each window class has styles that are encapsulated in style objects.

Generic styles are defined in IWindow. Classes derived from IWindow can combine their own styles with those of IWindow.

Each window class maintains its own default style object. You can access default style objects using the static member function defaultStyle and then set it using the static member function setDefaultStyle. Each window class also maintains a style object called classDefaultStyle that corresponds to the initial setting of defaultStyle.

Most window classes provide one or more constructors that accept a style object as one parameter. You can only construct a style object from existing style objects. These style objects are only used by window constructors. The style of a window can subsequently be changed and queried using the window class member functions. Also, some styles cannot change after a window has
been created, in which case, no member function is provided to change the style.

The following sections describe how you can use bitwise operators. For the sake of simplicity, the IComboBox class and its styles are used for all examples. The IBitFlag class provides bitwise operators that you can use with
the styles of the Open Class Library just as if you were using them with numbers. Refer to IComboBox in the Reference Information for more information about this class and its styles.

Copying Styles

The assignment operator (=) returns one style object that is set equal to the specified style object. The value of the resulting object is equal to the value of the operand object. For example:

IComboBox::Style myStyle = IComboBox::dropDownType;

Combining Styles

The bitwise OR (|) operator returns a style object that is a combination of two or more style objects. The value of the resulting object is the bitwise OR of the value of the two operand objects.

You can combine any existing style objects, such as myStyle1 and myStyle2 in the following example, to create yet another style object. For example:

IComboBox::Style
  myStyle3 = myStyle1 | myStyle2;

This example adds the tabStop style to the myStyle object:

IComboBox::Style myStyle = IComboBox::dropDownType;
myStyle |= IWindow::tabStop;

In many cases, you can combine styles of one class with those of another class. Here, an IComboBox style is combined with an IWindow style. The documentation for each class that has styles specifies whether other classes have compatible styles that you can use when constructing objects for those classes.

Testing Styles

The bitwise AND (&) operator returns an unsigned long integer that identifies if there are any bits common to the operand style or attribute objects. Typically, you use this operator to test whether a bitwise OR (|) operator has been used to combine one style object with another. For example:

bool isADropDown = false;
if (myStyle1 & IComboBox::dropDownType)
   isADropDown = true;

Negating Styles

The bitwise NOT (~) operator returns a negated style object. The
value of the resulting object is the bitwise NOT of the value of the operand object. For example:

IComboBox::Style::NegatedStyle
  negatedStyle = ~myStyle;

This code returns an object named negatedStyle that negates the value of the myStyle object.

The precedence of the AND operator (&) is greater than the OR operator (|). You must be aware of operator precedence to avoid creating invalid styles that might not be obvious.

Note:

If you do not want to consider operator precedence, specify the styles you want instead of negating others from the default Open Class Library styles.

The following example creates an invalid style that the IViewPort constructor will reject. This causes the following:

IViewPort::defaultStyle()
  | IViewPort::alwaysHorizontalScrollBar
  & ~IViewPort::asNeededHorizontalScrollBar

to be evaluated as:

IViewPort::defaultStyle()
  | (IViewPort::alwaysHorizontalScrollBar
  & ~IViewPort::asNeededHorizontalScrollBar)

as opposed to the following:

(IViewPort::defaultStyle()
  | IViewPort::alwaysHorizontalScrollBar)
  & ~IViewPort::asNeededHorizontalScrollBar

Therefore, you must consider the order and the operator precedence when you negate a style because the Open Class Library cannot change the order in which operators are evaluated in the code statement.

Setting Window Styles

You can create a window with a specific style in the following ways:

Create a window using a constructor that accepts the style as a parameter. The following three examples illustrate this method.

This example shows how to create an entry field control with a style that is a combination of styles from IWindow and IEntryField:

IEntryField  entryField( ID_EF1, parent, owner,
                         IRectangle(10, 10, 100, 20),
                         IWindow::visible    |
                         IWindow::tabStop   |
                         IWindow::group     |
                         IEntryField::margin |
                         IEntryField::autoScroll );

Alternatively, you can explicitly construct the style object and pass it as a parameter as follows:

IEntryField::Style efStyle = IWindow::visible    |
                             IWindow::tabStop   |
                             IWindow::group     |
                             IEntryField::margin |
                             IEntryField::autoScroll ;
IEntryField  entryField( ID_EF1, parent, owner,
                         IRectangle(10, 10, 100, 20),
                         efStyle );

You can also access the default style object using the static member function defaultStyle. This simplifies the preceding example to the following:

IEntryField  entryField( ID_EF1, parent, owner,
                         IRectangle(10, 10, 100, 20),
                         IEntryField::defaultStyle()  |
                         IWindow::tabStop            |
                         IWindow::group );

Use the static member function setDefaultStyle to set the default style and then construct the window. For example:

IEntryField::Style efStyle = IEntryField::defaultStyle()  |
                             IWindow::tabStop            |
                             IWindow::group     ;
IEntryField::setDefaultStyle(efStyle);
IEntryField  entryField( ID_EF1, parent, owner,
                         IRectangle(10, 10, 100, 20) );

Create a window with the default style and change it using member functions of the window. The example now becomes:

IEntryField  entryField( ID_EF1, parent, owner,
                         IRectangle(10, 10, 100, 20) );
entryField.enableGroup();                // Member function of IWindow
entryField.enableTabStop();              // Member function of IWindow
entryField.enableAutoScroll();           // Member function of IEntryField

Windows

Creating a Frame Window
Using Cursor Classes

IFrameWindow
IWindow
IControl