Category PsControls

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PsControls

In tiko. Owner-drawn custom controls for Win32, written in tiko and built on the sys/win package. They ship with the toolchain as modules of the vendor package, source only: #import "vendor/PsControls/PsButton" and nothing on the command line.

Every control draws itself, top to bottom. There is no comctl32 control underneath, so a window built from these looks the same on every machine and can be themed to any palette, dark ones included.

Importing a control

Each control is one module, vendor/PsControls/<name>:

#import "sys/win"
#import "sys/win/gui"
#import "sys/win/gdiplus"
#import "vendor/PsControls/PsBufferPaint"
#import "vendor/PsControls/PsButton"

using gui
using gdiplus
using PsBufferPaint
using PsButton

using lets every name be written bare: PsButton_Create, BTN_ALIGN_CENTER, PsBufferPaint's drawing calls. Without it, write PsButton.PsButton_Create.

A module imports the modules it is built from, so importing PsButton compiles PsBufferPaint, PsImage, PsTipHost and PsTooltip too. Import one yourself only to name something of its own: PsBufferPaint for a paint callback, PsTooltip to configure a shared tooltip, PsTipHost for the PSTIP_MODE_* constants.

Runnable demos for every control are in the toolchain's examples/PsControls/, one folder each, built with tiko build.

The application framework

PsApp is the quick way to a running program. It does the start-up (COM, GDI+, DPI awareness, the icon font), the message loop and the tear-down, and each form's messages arrive as callbacks:

#import "vendor/PsControls/PsApp"
#import "vendor/PsControls/PsButton"
using PsApp
using PsButton

dim app as PsApplication
app.Init( )
dim f as PsForm ptr = app.NewForm( "Hello", 640, 400 )
dim hOk as HWND = PsButton_Create( f->hWindow, 1001 )   ' themed, with the form's font
PsButton_SetText( hOk, "OK" )
f->OnSize( sub( byval f as PsForm ptr, byval cx as long, byval cy as long )
               SetWindowPos( f->Item( 1001 ), null, cx - f->ScaleX( 100 ), cy - f->ScaleY( 44 ), _
                             f->ScaleX( 88 ), f->ScaleY( 32 ), SWP_NOZORDER or SWP_SHOWWINDOW )
           end sub )
end app.Run( f )

Module	What it is
PsApp	PsApplication (start-up, the message loop, tear-down, RunOnUI for background threads, timers) and PsForm (a window whose messages arrive as callbacks; modal forms; per-monitor DPI)
PsTheme	The shared theme: semantic colour roles, Dark and Light presets, following the Windows setting live
PsRegistry	Where each control registers what the message loop must do for it, and its theme, font and DPI procs

The Notepad Tutorial builds a complete program with it: a text editor with menus, a status bar, Find and a self-test. The toolchain's examples/PsControls/PsApp is a starter to copy; PsTheme is a gallery of the controls under the theme, and PsAppWorker shows background work reporting to the window.

The controls

Group	Pages
Text, numbers and dates	PsTextBox, PsNumericUpDown, PsDatePicker, PsCalendar
Buttons and switches	PsButton, PsCheckBox, PsOptionButton, PsToggle
Lists and selection	PsListTree, PsComboBox, PsSelectBar, PsTabBar
Command surfaces	PsMenuBar, PsToolbar, PsIconPanel, PsStatusBar
Layout and scrolling	PsSplitter, PsScrollPanel, PsVScrollBar, PsHScrollBar
Popups and feedback	PsMessageBox, PsColorPicker, PsTooltip, PsProgressBar
Data display	PsChart

Support modules

Module	What it is
PsBufferPaint	The flicker-free drawing surface every control paints through
PsImage	Image files (.ico, .png, .bmp, .jpg) for icon slots
PsPopupMenu	The dropdown behind menus, combo boxes and toolbars
PsColumnHeader	The column header band; PsListTree places one above its rows
PsTipHost	The tooltip backend switch: system tooltip or PsTooltip

Type names

A module may not have a public name equal to its own, so each control's state type carries a _STATE suffix (PSBUTTON_STATE, PSLISTTREE_STATE, PSTOOLTIP_STATE, ...), the drawing-surface type of PsBufferPaint is PsPaintBuffer, and the image type of PsImage is PsImageFile. The procedures keep the module's name as their prefix: PsBufferPaint_..., PsImage_....

Every constant the controls define (PSTOGGLE_DEFAULT_TRACKW, CCOLHDR_FILL_LAST, PM_ALIGN_BELOW, the timer ids, ...) is a public const, reached through using like any other name. Where a page names a constant or enum of another module (PSTIP_MODE_PS is PsTipHost's, for instance), import that module too.

Requirements

• Windows. The controls call the Win32 API directly.

• UNICODE on your build. The modules are compiled with it (the vendor package defines it for its own modules), and your program must match. A file cannot #define UNICODE ahead of #import "sys/win", so set it in tiko.toml or with -d UNICODE:

  [target.main.defines]
  UNICODE = "1"

• GDI+ running from before the first repaint to after the last window is destroyed: gdiplus.Init() / gdiplus.Uninit( token ) around the message loop.

• Segoe Fluent Icons for the glyphs most controls draw. It ships with Windows 11 as SegoeIcons.ttf in the Windows fonts folder, but belongs to Microsoft and does not ship with tiko.

Licence

Mozilla Public License 2.0, file-level copyleft: use the controls in closed-source software freely; if you modify these files, publish those files' changes. The Exhibit B "Incompatible With Secondary Licenses" notice is not applied, which keeps the controls GPL-compatible.

See also

• Notepad Tutorial
• Vendor Packages
• Packages and Modules Tutorial
• tiko build