How to Add a Color Palette to VB6
- 1). Open the Paint software by clicking on "Start," "All Programs," "Accessories" and selecting "Paint." Within the Paint program click on "Edit Colors." The default color palette appears, and you can create new custom colors for your palette from this.
- 2). Create the new colors by altering the color numbers shown for Hue, Saturation, Luminescence, Red, Green, and Blue or by moving the cursor on the rainbow display of colors and the arrow on the color bar to the right of the display. Each time you find a color you like click the "Add to Custom Colors" box. When finished, click "OK" and select "Save as," giving the file an easy to remember name and location. For the file type, select "256-Color Bitmap .bmp."
- 3). Open a new Visual Basic project using the "Standard EXE" template or open an existing project. Click on the default Form1 to see the Properties of the form in the right-hand panel. Scroll down in the Properties until you see "Palette." Click this and you will see a box with three tiny dots to the right, indicating a Browse function. Click on the dots and then locate the Bitmap image (picture) you saved in Step 2. Click on this file to insert in the File Name and then click "Open." Notice that the PaletteMode below Palette has changed from "0 -- Halftone" to "2 -- Custom."
- 4). Add several Labels and a TextBox or two to the form by double-clicking on these controls in the ToolBox on the left. This lets you experiment with your new palette. Use the Properties panel change to insert Captions in each Label and Text in each Textbox. Then click on each control in turn to modify the properties that affect color. For example, for one Label double-click on the "BackColor" property. By default, the "System" palette appears, but when you click on "Palette" you see your new palette with different colors. Use the same method to modify the Form colors themselves using your new palette options.
- 5). Click "View" and then "Code" in the top level Visual Basic menu to open the Code view. Type these lines, which will display the newly colorized form when the program runs:
Private Sub Form_Load()
End Sub
Press "F5" to run the program and see your new colors.
