GroupBox Text Question

Hello all.

I have an installer where I am editing the stock Finish Page's iospecial.ini before it is diplayed in order to add some colored text. That is working just fine.

However I also added a GroupBox to the Finish Page, and it too looks good, but I noticed that the GroupBox Text (Final Update Status) is always displaying in a dark blue (see below). I tested this on another installer that begins with a custom page, and there again, the text is blue.



I tried to change this using:

GetDlgItem $MUI_TEMP1 $MUI_HWND 1202   ;3rd control

SetCtlColors $MUI_TEMP1 "000000" "${MUI_BGCOLOR}"

But no luck. The iospecial.ini code is:

[Field 3]

Type=GroupBox

Left=120

Right=315

Top=45

Bottom=90

Text=Final Update Status

Any ideas? Thanks.

Jnuw

This is probably your XP theme doing its thing.
I think that XP themes will override any colors you try to set, unless you subclass the control and override the XP theme.
Did you try turning XPStyle off?

Modifying IntallOptions' test.nsi InstallOptions call did the trick and change the background color of the text.

InstallOptions::initDialog /NOUNLOAD "$PLUGINSDIR\test.ini"

Pop ${TEMP1}

ReadINIStr ${TEMP1} "$PLUGINSDIR\test.ini" "Field 1" "HWND" # 2.11 feature

SetCtlColors ${TEMP1} 0x00FF00 0xFF

InstallOptions::show

Are you sure the HWND is correct? Try hiding the window using ShowWindow. This way you can't be wrong about the window handle you got.

[edit] Turning XPStyle on indeed changed my text color. That might be the problem.

iceman_k, yes, when I turn off XPStyle, it goes back to black, however I don't want to give up the XPStyle, but thanks for the suggestion.

kichik, I believe I have the HWND correct when I added the last line of code below, the GroupBox disappeared.

GetDlgItem $MUI_TEMP1 $MUI_HWND 1202  ;Set to 3rd control

SetCtlColors $MUI_TEMP1 "000000" "${MUI_BGCOLOR}"

ShowWindow $MUI_TEMP1 Hide

I have these commands in the Finish Page SHOW function, along with the other commands to change the color of other Finish Page controls. Am I doing something wrong? Thanks.

Jnuw

Originally posted by Jnuw
Am I doing something wrong?

Nope, it seems correct. And if the control hides with ShowWindow, it most probably is. Try a transparent background, that might work.

kichik, thanks for looking at this. I tried setting the background to Transparent, and no change. Then just to see if it was working, I did this:

GetDlgItem $MUI_TEMP1 $MUI_HWND 1202  ;Set to 3rd control

SetCtlColors $MUI_TEMP1 "000000" "000000"

And got this:



So part of the command is working (backgrond), but not the font color part.

Jnuw

Originally posted by Jnuw
iceman_k, yes, when I turn off XPStyle, it goes back to black, however I don't want to give up the XPStyle, but thanks for the suggestion.

Like I said before, as long as you have XPStyle on, I don't think you can do anything about the Groupbox text color.
One hack would be to place a label on top of the Groupbox which lies on top of the Groupbox label. Then set the label text color.
If you are hellbent on using XPStyle then consider creating a plugin which subclasses the Groupbox control.
The VisualStylesXP wrapper might be of help there.
(I am using it in EclipseNSIS to circumvent a bug in the Microsoft implementation of WM_PRINT for certain XP themed controls).

Originally posted by Jnuw

GetDlgItem $MUI_TEMP1 $MUI_HWND 1202  ;Set to 3rd control

SetCtlColors $MUI_TEMP1 "000000" "000000"

And got this:



So part of the command is working (background), but not the font color part.

Since the above command is not working for me, I took your suggestion iceman, and put a label control directly on top of the groupbox label. It works/looks good on my PC.

My question is this, will have any display or stability problems on my customers' PCs, with varying operating systems and/or video cards? I just want to double check that I'm not taking any risks or making a buggy installer by intentionally programming a label control on top of another control. Thanks all for your help.

Jnuw

Is there a particular reason why you want the groupbox color in black?
Why don't you leave it as it is?
That way the installer UI look & feel will be consistent with the end-user's desktop look & feel.
IMHO, that is better than forcing it to be black.

Hi iceman_k, I know I'm being picky, however because I am using multiple colors (see below) within the groupbox, I feel that the blue text clashes with the rest of the colored text, and also draws some attention away from the inner text as well. Again, I know I am being picky, but as along as there are no issues putting the a control on top of another, I would like the text to be black. Sorry to be a pain, and thanks again for your help.



Versus


I know, it is subtle, but I think it looks better with the black. 🙂

Just to make sure that no underlying text is shown for the GroupBox, set its Text value to blank.
I don't anticipate any issues on other versions of Windows O/S or different video cards.

Will do, and thanks again for your help.