Visual Basic Codes
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Creating a faded background on a form

Creating a faded background on a form

The code below fades (washes) the background of a form with a specified color range.

'Purpose     :  Fades the backcolor of a form (useful for installation screens/wizards etc).
'Inputs      :  oForm               The form to fade the backcolor on.
'               [lBaseColor]        The base color to use in the form fade.
'               [lFadeColor]        The color to fade the base color to.
'Outputs     :  N/A
'Example     :  FormFadeBackColor Me, vbBlue, vbGreen
'               FormFadeBackColor Me, vbRed, vbGreen

Sub FormFadeBackColor(oForm As Form, Optional lStartColor As Long = vbBlack, Optional lEndColor As Long = vbBlue)
    Dim lRedStart As Long, lGreenStart As Long, lBlueStart As Long
    Dim lRedEnd As Long, lGreenEnd As Long, lBlueEnd As Long
    Dim fRedStep As Double, fGreenStep As Double, fBlueStep As Double
    Dim lStep As Long
    
    On Error GoTo ErrFailed
    oForm.AutoRedraw = True
    oForm.DrawStyle = vbInsideSolid
    oForm.DrawMode = vbCopyPen
    oForm.DrawWidth = 2
    oForm.ScaleMode = vbPixels
    
    lRedStart = lStartColor And vbRed
    lGreenStart = (lStartColor And vbGreen) / (vbRed + 1)
    lBlueStart = (lStartColor And vbBlue) / (vbGreen + 1)
    
    lRedEnd = lEndColor And vbRed
    lGreenEnd = (lEndColor And vbGreen) / (vbRed + 1)
    lBlueEnd = (lEndColor And vbBlue) / (vbGreen + 1)
    
    fRedStep = (lRedEnd - lRedStart) / oForm.ScaleHeight
    fGreenStep = (lGreenEnd - lGreenStart) / oForm.ScaleHeight
    fBlueStep = (lBlueEnd - lBlueStart) / oForm.ScaleHeight
    
    For lStep = 0 To oForm.ScaleHeight
        oForm.Line (oForm.ScaleLeft, oForm.ScaleTop + lStep)-(oForm.ScaleLeft + oForm.ScaleWidth, oForm.ScaleTop + lStep), RGB(lRedStart + lStep * fRedStep, lGreenStart + lStep * fGreenStep, lBlueStart + lStep * fBlueStep), BF
    Next
    
    Exit Sub
    
ErrFailed:
    Debug.Print err.description
    Debug.Assert False
End Sub