Comprehensive Suite of 60 32bit components 

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Build professional front-end applications with this collection of components. OLETools is a complete set of 60 32bit ActiveX components including: a Tab control - for tabbed interfaces, a Tree control - for displaying hierarchical data, multi-column List and Combo Boxes, and various masked input controls for implementing advanced data verification. Also includes a 3D calendar, and multimedia components for playing back AVI, and WAV files from within your application.

OLETools is based upon the award winning product “VBTools” (16bit) formerly produced by MicroHelp, Inc.  OLETools represents over 10 years of development effort in meeting the needs of programmers around the world.  Since the release of VBTools 1.0 these controls have been refined to include the feature sets most programmers need to complete their project needs.

OLETools contains many specialized controls, adding valuable functionality to your applications. The multiple segment label makes short work of creating status bars, and the RollUp control enables you to create floating palettes easily. Also included is an assortment of visual controls such as Gauge, Dial, Marquee, and Histograph. The most diverse package from a single vendor! OLETools provides much more functionality than we have room to list. OLETools takes full advantage of the Data Access capabilities of Visual Basic by providing data aware controls for unsurpassed development efficiency.

Upgrade Requirements: Upgrade installation requires VBTools 4-6 or OLETools 5-6.5

Mh3dButn Control

The Mh3dButn control is an enhanced version of the standard Visual Basic command button. You can use it to create custom buttons that have 3-D effects, multiline captions and multiple bitmaps to represent different conditions. The following figure shows several Mh3dButn control examples.

Mh3dButn Control Example

The Mh3dCheck control is an enhanced version of the standard Visual Basic check box control. The Mh3dCheck custom control has all the functionality of the standard Visual Basic check box, supporting all of the same properties, events and methods. In addition to supporting all the properties and features of the standard control, Mh3dCheck has several unique features including:

• An optional 3-D appearance, including the font used in the caption
• Control of all the colors used in the control
• A multi or single line caption that can be aligned
• Ability to change the check box as well as to display pictures for the different states

Mh3dCheck Control Overview.

The Mh3dCommand control is an enhanced version of the standard Visual Basic command button control. In addition to supporting most of the properties and features of the standard control, Mh3dCommand has several unique features.

• An optional 3-D appearance, including the font used in the caption
• Control of all the colors used in the control
• A multi or single line caption that can be aligned
• The ability to display pictures for the three different states: Down, Pressed and Up
• Create a state button -- one that can be toggled between the up and down positions

The Mh3dGroup control is an enhanced version of the standard Visual Basic command button control that has the combined functionality of the Mh3dCommand custom control and an option button. An Mh3dGroup control has all of the functionality of Mh3dCommand. In addition, this control has the ability to function in tandem with other instances of the same control as a group of option buttons. Mh3dGroup has the following unique features:

• An optional 3-D appearance, including the font used in the caption
• Control of all the colors used in the control
• A multi or single line caption that can be aligned
• The ability to display pictures for the three different states: Down, Pressed and Up
• Create a state button -- one that can be toggled between the up and down positions
• A group property that makes multiple instances of this control work like option buttons

Mh3dGroup Control Example

The Mh3dOption control is an enhanced version of the standard Visual Basic option button control. Mh3dOption has all the functionality of the standard Visual Basic option button plus the following unique features:

• An optional 3-D appearance, incuding the font used in the caption
• Control of all the colors used in the control
• A multi or single line caption that can be aligned
• The ability to change the size of the Option box as well as display pictures for the different states
• You can display your own pictures for the checked, unchecked, grayed (disabled) and pressed states.
• You can align the option button to the left or right side of the control and even modify the size of the option button itself.

Mh3dOption Control Example

The MhAnimate control is an enhanced picture box control that can display a sequence of bitmaps. Once you set the MhAnimate control's properties, it runs without further attention by your program. MhAnimate has properties to control the speed, direction and content of playback.

The MhCommand control enhances the standard Visual Basic command button by providing multiline captions, alignment of the caption, and replacement of the standard button image with programmer-defined bitmaps. The following figure shows several examples of MhCommand controls.

MhCommand Control Example

The MhMultiple control is similar to the standard Visual Basic command button control but has the ability to display five different images. You can display each version of the control in four different states, indicated by a change in color of part or all of the control. You decide if the user can change the state of the control by clicking it or if the state of the control changes only from code. The following table provides an overview of the MhMultiple control.

Mh3dCalendar Control

The Mh3dCalendar control is used to display and select dates from a monthly calendar. Some of the unique features of the Mh3dCalendar control include:

• The ability to display and select multiple dates
• An optional 3-D appearance drawn around the edge of the control as well as the currently selected date
• Control of all the colors used in the control
• The ability to display an image on the background of the control or on the top half of the control (similar to a fold-out calendar)
• Multi-language support

MhCommonDialog Control

The MhCommonDialog control is an enhanced version of the Visual Basic common dialog control. MhCommonDialog is 100% compatible with the standard VB common dialog control and includes the following additional features:

• You can add your own controls to a common dialog box. When controls are placed on a common dialog box, they will behave exactly like they do on a VB form. The standard VB events will continue to occur for each control.
• When using the File Open and File Save dialog boxes, the FileNameChange event occurs as the user selects different files in the file list. You can place code in that event to respond to each change, such as displaying the highlighted file in an MhFileDisplay control.
• You can resize or move a common dialog box to make room for your own controls.

BCFlowChart Control

The BCFlowChart control is a multi segment control, much like the multilabel control. It contains segments internally that are controlled though the SegXxxx properties. The SegStyle property controls the type of object for a segment. These SegStyles can be classified as either…

Visual Element (object): Defined mostly by bitmap graphics selected into the object and then further defined by captions.
Nodes: Connection points. Connection points can be placed anywhere and can either be a Child of a Visual Element or be a Child of the Workspace.
Lines: Lines can only run between two connection points. Connection points can be placed anywhere.
All three object types are controlled by Segxxx properties.


BCFlowChart Control Example

The MhCommonDialog control is an enhanced version of the Visual Basic common dialog control. MhCommonDialog is 100% compatible with the standard VB common dialog control and includes the following additional features:

• You can add your own controls to a common dialog box. When controls are placed on a common dialog box, they will behave exactly like they do on a VB form. The standard VB events will continue to occur for each control.
• When using the File Open and File Save dialog boxes, the FileNameChange event occurs as the user selects different files in the file list. You can place code in that event to respond to each change, such as displaying the highlighted file in an MhFileDisplay control.
• You can resize or move a common dialog box to make room for your own controls.

The Mh3dGroup control is an enhanced version of the standard Visual Basic command button control that has the combined functionality of the Mh3dCommand custom control and an option button. An Mh3dGroup control has all of the functionality of Mh3dCommand. In addition, this control has the ability to function in tandem with other instances of the same control as a group of option buttons. Mh3dGroup has the following unique features:

• An optional 3-D appearance, including the font used in the caption
• Control of all the colors used in the control
• A multi or single line caption that can be aligned
• The ability to display pictures for the three different states: Down, Pressed and Up
• Create a state button -- one that can be toggled between the up and down positions
• A group property that makes multiple instances of this control work like option buttons

Mh3dGroup Control Example

The MhImage control displays many of the most popular image file formats including:

• BMP
• GIF*
• ICON
• PCX
• TARGA
• TIF*
• WMF

24-bit color images are supported.

*Some compression formats are not supported

MhCardDeck Control

The MhCardDeck control lets you display any card from a standard 52-card deck of playing cards. This control is similar in concept to a Picture control, except that it displays a fixed set of bitmaps. The following figure shows several example MhCardDeck controls.

MhCardDeck Control Overview.

The MhDice control is a specialized picture box control that displays dice. The following figure shows the default MhDice bitmaps.

MhDice Control Example.

The MhHistograph control is a specialized picture box control that lets you display information as if it were being drawn on a plotter. The MhHistograph control lets you create charts by simulating a plotter. You can plot data along a time line and move the paper forward and backward in the plotter to view or draw on different sections of the paper.

Mh3dText Control

The Mh3dText control is an enhanced version of the standard Visual Basic text control. The Mh3dText custom control has all the functionality of the standard Visual Basic text control and supports all the same properties, events and methods with the following exception: the Mh3dText custom control cannot support the PasswordChar property that is standard in Visual Basic. That style cannot be combined with the style that is required to allow us to draw the bevel around the edge of the control. Mh3dText provides the following unique features:

• An optional 3-D appearance
• Control of all the colors used in the control
• The ability to horizontally align the text in the control

Mh3dText Control Example

The MhInput control is an enhanced version of the standard VB text box control. Since MhInput controls contain all the capabilities of standard VB text box controls, you can use an MhInput control in place of any standard text box control. Most importantly, MhInput's custom properties let you easily implement features (using a single instruction) that would take several VB instructions to perform. MhInput's many advantages include the following:

• Masked input characters. This allows you to specify the nature of the characters that may be entered in the first 50 positions of the control.
• Pre-defined input types. These include Social Security and phone numbers, five- and nine-digit zip codes, times and dates.
• An extra thick BorderStyle.
• Insert and overstrike modes, including separate Caret sizes for each mode. Standard VB text box controls do not provide overstrike mode.
• Programmer-defined maximum text length.
• An Alignment property.
• An undo option.
• An AutoTerminate event that occurs when the user enters the last character of a control in which you've specified a maximum text length.

The MhIntInput control is an enhanced version of the VB text box control designed specifically for numeric input. The MhIntInput control is ideal for data entry applications and other situations where you want to restrict user input to a certain long integer range. MhIntInput features the following:

• Optional built-in spin buttons, with complete control over the position, increment/decrement values and repeat rate.
• Optional horizontal scrolling when the text length exceeds the physical width of the control.
• Horizontal and vertical alignment of the text.
• Optional 3-D effects.
• Complete control over the size, appearance and behavior of the caret.
• The ability to define minimum and maximum values allowed by the control.
• Custom events that occur when an invalid entry is made, or when an invalid text string is set into the control. This includes setting the Text property, SelText property, the Windows SendMessage call (with WM_SETTEXT), data retrieved from a database, a DDE link, or a paste from the clipboard.

MhIntInput Control Example.

The MhMaskInput control is a powerful text box control that allows you to define your own edit masks. MhMaskInput offers the following features:

• Design time or run time configuration via an initialization (.INI) file.
• Optional case conversion, with mixed-case support for proper names.
• Optional horizontal scrolling when the text length exceeds the physical width of the control.
• Horizontal and vertical alignment of the text.
• Optional 3-D effects.
• Complete control over the size, appearance and behavior of the caret.
• A custom event that occurs when an invalid text string is set into the control. This includes setting the Text property, SelText property, the Windows SendMessage call (with WM_SETTEXT), data retrieved from a database, a DDE link, or a paste from the clipboard.

 
MhMaskInput Control Example

The MhRealInput control is an enhanced version of the VB text box control that was designed specifically for entering real numbers and currency values. The value is displayed according to the Number or Currency settings defined in the Windows Control Panel. The MhRealInput control is ideal for data entry applications and other situations where you want to restrict user input to a certain range of real numbers or currency values. The MhRealInput control offers the following features:

• Optional built-in spin buttons, with complete control over the position, decrement/decrement values and repeat rate.
• Optional horizontal scrolling when the text length exceeds the physical width of the control.
• Horizontal and vertical alignment of the text.
• Optional 3-D effects.
• Complete control over the size, appearance and behavior of the caret.
• The ability to define minimum and maximum values allowed by the control.
• Custom events that occur when an invalid entry is made, or when an invalid text string is set into the control. This includes setting the Text property, SelText property, the Windows SendMessage call (with WM_SETTEXT), data retrieved from a database, a DDE link, or a paste from the clipboard.

MhRealInput Control Example.

The MhTimeInput control is an enhanced version of the VB text box control designed specifically for time input. MhTimeInput is ideal for data entry applications and other situations where you want to restrict user input to a certain range of times. MhTimeInput features the following:

• Optional built-in spin buttons, with complete control over the position, increment/decrement values and repeat rate.
• Optional horizontal scrolling when the text length exceeds the physical width of the control.
• Horizontal and vertical alignment of the text.
• Optional 3-D effects.
• Complete control over the size, appearance and behavior of the caret.
• The ability to define minimum and maximum times allowed by the control.
• Custom events that occur when an invalid entry is made, or when an invalid text string is set into the control. This includes setting the Text property, SelText property, the Windows SendMessage call (with WM_SETTEXT), data retrieved from a database, a DDE link, or a paste from the clipboard.

BCExtender Control

The BCExtender control is a special version of the MhTip control. Use the Extender control on List or Text cotrols to temporarily display text that does not fit into the controls display area (as seen in the Windows 95 Explorer Interface). This control is designed to "float" text over a control that cannot show all of the text at one time within the confines of it's own control. You must use one extender control for each control that you wish to float text over. The following figure shows an example of the BCExtender control, and several situations where it can be used.

BCExtender Control Example

The Mh3dFrame control is an enhanced version of the standard Visual Basic frame control. In addition to supporting all of the properties and features of the standard control, Mh3dFrame offers the following unique features:

• An optional 3-D appearance, including the font used in the caption
• Control of all the colors used in the control
• The ability to align the caption and create a frame without a border
• Display a picture on the background of the control

Mh3dFrame Control Example.

The Mh3dLabel control is an enhanced label control. In addition to supporting all of the properties and features of the standard label control, Mh3dLabel offers several unique features:

• An optional 3-D appearance including an inner and outer bevel and font.
• Control of all the colors used in the control.
• Display a picture on the background of the control.
• Align the caption both vertically and horizontally.

Mh3dLabel Control Example

The Mh3dMultiLabel control is an enhanced version of the standard Visual Basic label control. In addition to supporting all of the properties and features of the standard control, Mh3dMultiLabel has the following unique features:

• An optional 3-D appearance, including the fonts used in the segment captions
• Control of all the colors used in the control
• The ability to automatically align the control to the top or bottom of the parent when using VB version 2.0 or later.

The most unique aspect of this control is its ability to have up to 100 different and individually addressable segments. Each segment has its own set of properties, which allow you to display captions, pictures and even a Percent Complete bar.


Mh3dMultiLabel Control Example

The MhMarque control is an enhanced label control that can show a moving banner of text, with or without a set of moving bitmaps. The MhMarque control is useful when you want a control that attracts attention. In many respects, the MhMarque control combines the features of the MhAnimate and the Mh3d controls into a single control. The major difference between the MhMarque and MhAnimate controls, however, is that you can specify up to three unique bitmaps for the MhMarque while the MhAnimate control can display up to 32,767 bitmaps.

The Mh3d control is an enhanced version of the standard Visual Basic label control. You can use Mh3d to create custom labels that have depressed or raised shading and other 3-D effects. Mh3d controls have a Percent Complete feature as well as the ability to display multiline captions.

Mh3d Control Example

The MhTip control is used to provide pop-up captions when the mouse is moved over other designated controls.

BCLangFile
BCLangCtl
B3RCEdit

BCLanguage Control

BCLangFile
This control provides access to the RC File String resources. This control is "currently" designed to only work with the uncompiled RC file - not the compiled RES file. The RC file will list strings that the program uses, formatted in such a way that this control can identify and load those strings for use within the program. This format is compatible with a standard RC file format. However, you shouldn't attempt to load an existing RC file into the B3RCEdit program due to it's limited ability. With certain precautions, the BCLangFile control should be able to read an existing RC file.

BCLangCtl
This is a design time control that allows the programmer to connect properties of controls to the resource items within a language file. These strings are loaded into the controls' properties during the form load. This keeps the programmer from having to write code to "load" the captions with internationalized text.

There is a design time dialog that facilitates configuring the captions and text and as such the properties will seldom be used at run time as they are not very useful after the form is loaded.

B3RCEdit
This tool also has an editor with it that the control can interact with at design time to update resource strings. The editor is designed specifically to edit the resource files used with this control. The Editor (default B3RCEdit.EXE) must be found on the search path or current directory. An associated file WINNLS.DAT, must be in the same location as the editor.

Mh3dCombo Control

The Mh3dCombo control is an enhanced version of the standard Visual Basic combo box control. The Mh3dCombo custom control has all the functionality of the standard Visual Basic combo box and supports all of the same properties, events and methods. In addition, Mh3dCombo offers the following unique features:

• An optional 3-D appearance, including the font used in the list portion
• Control of all the colors used in the control
• Multiple columns for the items in the list box portion of the control
• The ability to search the items in the control for a string
• The ability to force the case of all items in the list box section of the control
• Display two different pictures for every item in the list portion of the control, one when it is selected and another when it is not
• An optional dividing line that can be displayed between columns
• Set the number of items that are displayed in the drop-down portion of the control
  

Mh3dCombo Control Example.

The Mh3dDir control is an enhanced version of the standard Visual Basic directory list box control. The Mh3dDir custom control has all the functionality of the standard Visual Basic directory list box and supports all of the same properties, events and methods. In addition, Mh3dDir has several unique features as follows:

• An optional 3-D appearance, including special 3-D directory pictures and the font used for the directory names.
• Control of all the colors used in the control.
• The ability to search the items in the control for a string.
• The ability to force the case of all items in the list box section of the control.
• Display two pictures for every item in the list portion of the control, one when it's selected and another when it's not (available only when you are not using the default 3-D pictures).
• Single or multi-select capability.
• An optional caption.
• Supports the AddItem and RemoveItem methods.

Mh3dDir Control Example

The Mh3dDrive control an enhanced version of the standard Visual Basic drive list box control. This control has all the functionality of the standard VB drive control, with a number of added features and additional functionality. Mh3dDrive offers several unique features as follows.

• An optional 3-D appearance, including special 3-D drive types and the font used for the drive volume labels
• Control of all the colors used in the control
• The ability to search the items in the control for a string
• The ability to force the case of all items in the list box section of the control
• Display two pictures for each item in the list portion of the control, one when it's selected and another when it's not (available only when you are not using the default 3-D pictures)
• Supports the AddItem and RemoveItem methods

Mh3dDrive Control Example

The Mh3dFile control is an enhanced version of the standard Visual Basic file list box control. The Mh3dFile control has all the functionality of the standard Visual Basic file list box control, with a number of added features and additional functionality. Mh3dFile has several unique features including:

• An optional 3-D appearance, including special 3-D pictures and the font used for the file names
• Control of all the colors used in the control
• The ability to search the items in the control for a string
• The ability to force the case of all items in the list box section of the control
• Display two different pictures for every item in the list portion of the control, one when it is selected and another when it is not selected.
• Single or multi-select capability
• An optional caption
• Supports the AddItem and RemoveItem methods

Mh3dFile Control Example

The Mh3dList control is an enhanced version of the standard Visual Basic list box control. The Mh3dList custom control has all the functionality of the standard Visual Basic list box control, with a number of added features including:

• An optional 3-D appearance, including the font used for the items in the list
• Control of all the colors used in the control
• The ability to create multiple columns, each with a unique width, alignment and the ability to be resized at run-time
• The ability to search the items in the control for a string
• The ability to force the case of all items in the list box section of the control
• Display two different pictures for every item in the list: one when it is selected and another when it is not selected

One of the most unique features in this control is the ability to have multiple columns that can be either fixed in width or set to allow the user to adjust the width at run time. You can even have scrolling titles with a separate heading for each column.

Mh3dList Control Example

The MhFileList control is an enhanced version of the standard VB file list box control. In addition to displaying information about files, it can display directory names and list the available drives. The following figure shows an example MhFileList control. The following table provides an overview of the MhFileList control.

MhFileList Control Example

The MhTree control lets you display information in a collapsible/expandable tree. The following figure shows an example of an MhTree control.

MhTree Control Example

Mh3dGauge Control

The Mh3dGauge control is a unique control used to display linear, needle or bitmap style gauges. Mh3dGauge controls are useful for Percent Complete indicators, fuel gauges, thermometers or any other type of analog gauge. Mh3dGauge features:

• An optional 3-D appearance, including the font used in the caption
• Control of all the colors used in the control
• The ability to align the caption
• The ability to use two different pictures to indicate the Percent Complete

Mh3dGauge Control Example

The Mh3dKeyStat control is an enhanced command button control that is used to monitor the four PC keyboard state keys. Mh3dKeyStat provides the following features:

• Different images for the on and off states
• An optional 3-D appearance, including the font used in the caption
• Control of all the colors used in the control
• The ability to align the caption

Mh3dKeyStat Control Example

The MhAlarm control is an audio-visual attention getter that comes in three default styles: telephone, alarm clock, or wrist alarm. You can also define your own images. You can display MhAlarm controls on your forms and use the associated bitmaps in place of your form's icon when the form is minimized. The following figure shows the MhAlarm bitmaps.

MhAlarm Control Example

The MhClock control lets you display clocks in digital and analog form. In addition to an alarm feature, MhClock provides default clock images and 3-D effects. You may also specify your own bitmaps to display. The following figure shows an example MhClock control.

MhClock Control Example.

The MhIni control provides the capability to retrieve, add, and modify information in Windows initialization (INI) files and the Windows Registry.

The MhInvisible control lets you create a control that can be used to generate events for portions of a form or another control.

The MhInvisible custom control is an invisible control that you can place on top of forms or other controls to intercept and react to the standard set of events. The control is useful when you want a control or form to react to events based on the location on the control or form where the event occurred.

The MhNetwork control provides quick and easy access to standard Windows network dialogs and functionality.

The MhOddPic control is a specialized picture box control that displays pictures that are not rectangular in shape. The following figure shows several an example MhOddPic control and its output.

Picture Box	Odd Picture	Combined Output
MhOddPic Control Example and Its Output

The MhSubClass control provides access to subclassing services.

The MhTimer control is a replacement for the Timer control included with Visual Basic.  Its overall value is that it only consumes one timer resource from the system regardless of how many timers or differing intervals you set.

BCSound Connector Control

The BCSoundConnector is designed to connect one (or more) of our wave controls to specific events / messages within other controls on the form. A design time interface is provided to make the connection.

The MhAVI control provides the ability to open and play audio-visual interleave (AVI) files. AVI files contain video and (optionally) audio in the Microsoft Video for Windows format. The followig table provides an overview of the MhAVI control.

The MhImage control displays many of the most popular image file formats including:

• BMP
• GIF*
• ICON
• PCX
• TARGA
• TIF*
• WMF
• EMF

24-bit color images are supported.

*Some compression formats are not supported

The MhWave control makes storing and playing wave (.WAV) files easy. MhWave also includes special functionality that you can use to play pre-recorded numbers and dates. The MhWave control requires a sound card for the playback of wave files.

This version of the MhWave player also features a RATING code and parental "lock-out" ability to prevent the playing of censored WAV files.

MhOutBox Control

The MhOutBox control is a powerful and unique picture control that gives you true device-independent output capabilities. With MhOutBox you can write one set of instructions that will produce output to the screen, a printer, a metafile or the clipboard. MhOutBox also provides VB programmers with convenient access to many Windows GDI functions without using C and the Windows SDK and allows you to:

• Draw interactively on the control at design time by manipulating properties in the Properties list. The resulting image is then saved in the form file, in metafile format.
• Combine or merge bitmaps. This can be done by pasting an image from the clipboard, loading a disk file or reading the Picture property from a picture control.
• Create multiple streams of text within a single image.
• Reduce or enlarge the image in one or two lines of code.