The Up-Down control is a Windows Common Control that is basically a simplified scrollbar used to increment and decrement values such as a scroll position or numeric values in a linked control (a.k.a the “buddy” control).
Up-Down control with an EditLine buddy (i.e. a “spin-control”)
It supports the following properties:
- ALIGN
- ARROWKEYS
- AUTOUPDATEBUDDY
- BUDDY
- HEXADECIMAL
- HORIZONTAL
- HOTTRACK
- INCREMENT
- RANGE
- SHOWTHOUSANDS
- VALUE
- WRAP
And the following events:
- GOTFOCUS
- HSCROLL
- LOSTFOCUS
- VSCROLL
ALIGN property
This property controls the position of the Up-Down control relative to its buddy control. It can be one of the following values:
- Null (empty)
- “L” – left
- “R” – right
If set to “R” the control positions itself to the right of its buddy control as per the image above (the width of the buddy control is shortened automatically to accommodate this). If set to “L” the Up-Down control is positioned to the left instead, and the buddy control is re-sized and re-positioned accordingly.
ARROWKEYS property
This is a boolean property. Setting it to TRUE (“1”) causes the buddy control to respond to the Up and Down arrow keys to increment and decrement the VALUE of the Up-Down control.
AUTOUPDATEBUDDY property
This is a boolean property. Setting it to TRUE (“1”) causes the Up-Down control to set the text of its buddy control when it’s own VALUE property changes.
BUDDY property
This property specifies the fully-qualified name of a control (usually an EDITLINE) to associate with the Up-Down control (i.e. it sets the “buddy control”).
HEXADECIMAL property
This is a boolean property. Setting it to TRUE (“1”) causes the Up-Down control to update its buddy control with a hexadecimal string rather than a decimal one.
HORIZONTAL property
This is a boolean property. Setting it to TRUE (“1”) causes the Up-Down control to render it’s arrows left and right rather than up and down.
HOTTRACK property
This a boolean property, Setting it to TRUE (“1”) causes the arrows on the Up-Down control to be highlighted as the mouse passes over them.
INCREMENT property
This property specifies the amount by which the VALUE changes when the buttons are clicked. By default this property is “1”.
RANGE property
This property is an @fm-delimited array of two integers containing the lower and upper limits of the Up-Down control.
<1> Low limit <2> High Limit
The VALUE property must be between these two values.
SHOWTHOUSANDS property
This a boolean property, Setting it to TRUE (“1”) shows a “thousands-separator” (a comma) for every three decimal digits when displaying the VALUE in a buddy control.
VALUE property
This property specifies the current position of the Up-Down control.
WRAP property
This a boolean property, Setting it to TRUE (“1”) causes the VALUE to “wrap” if it is incremented or decremented beyond its RANGE.
Further reading
More information on the Up-Down control can be found on the MSDN site here,
(Disclaimer: This article is based on preliminary information and may be subject to change in the final release version of OpenInsight 10).
