ctlUniMenu Control

How to use the control:
Place this control in every form with a menu; it permits you to turn a VB6 menu into an Unicode menu, use the [Attach] method to start the menu management in that form.
The Hexadecimal encoding permits you to use an ANSI string to specify an UNICODE string; in the [clsCommonWrapper] class you'll find conversion functions between UTF8, Hex and UNICODE strings.
The first pixel (0,0) of image items will be used as transparent color if you specify that the image should be treated as transparent ([OnOwnerDraw])

Choose the menu type using the [StringMode] property (available only at design time), 'Hex' is the default as the menu is able to check if strings are encoded in Hex or not.
If a menu item is not in Hex format, the menu will use it as it is.

StringMode = Hex
When using the Hex mode you can load every menu items using Hex encoded strings



you can also design your menu at design time placing Hex strings into Captions (quite difficult to maintain).
You can also translate your strings to UNICODE at run-time changing strings in the OnOwnerDraw event.

StringMode=UTF8 (Available only for backward compatibility)
When using the UTF8 mode you can load every menu items using UTF8 strings



you can also create your menu at design time placing UTF8/HEX strings into Captions.
You can also translate your strings to UNICODE at run-time changing strings in the OnOwnerDraw event.

StringMode=AsIs (no encoding)
The only way to use UNICODE strings is to translate/set them at run-time using the OnOwnerDraw event.
This option is very useful when you need only an advanced menu control without translation (for example you use only the English alphabet).

When using a MDI child form which replaces a parent MDI form menu remember that the child menu (OnOwnerDraw event) is managed by the parent.
In order to place extended separators, prefix a menu caption with [SEP]; the control will translate this item to an extended separator.
it 's possible to assign icons to items at design time by adding to the Caption the "|" character followed by the Index of the image in the ImageArray property (see above).



Working on multiple languages on the same application:


You can avoid this problem by acting in this way:



Menu Sample:

- Put menu images into a ctlImageBag control (use bitmaps or icons)
- Draw a ctlUNiMenu control into your form
- Set StringMode=Hex (you must use Hex strings for menu captions); you can use the UTF8Conv program to translate Unicode strings to Hex strings. You can also use the [clsCommonWrapper] class for doing conversions.
- Write Hex strings into the menu designer (if you want) or setup them later using conversion functions:



- In the Form_Load event of your form call the [Attach] method to start the menu management

Item Images:
I suggest you to use a private enum in order to store image indexes ;-)

Method 1:

- Use a | after the caption to setup images at design time (ex. Item2|2 uses the second image in the ctlUniMenu.ImageArray collection) or manage the [OnOwnerDraw] event
- Create a collection, add images clones ([ctlImageBag.GetPictureClone]) to the collection
- Set the new collection to the ctlUniMenu

Method 2:

Manage the [OnOwnerDraw] event of ctlUniMenu and set the oItemPic variable using the ctlImageBag control:

Private Sub ctlUTF8Menu1_OnOwnerDraw( _
    sItemText As String, _
    oItemPic As stdole.StdPicture, _
    iItemPicWidth As Integer, _
    iItemPicHeight As Integer, _
    bItemPicTransp As Boolean, _
    ByVal bItemSelected As Boolean)

    Select Case sItemText
        Case Item1.Caption
            Set oItemPic = ctlImageBag1.GetPictureClone(epics_first)
        Case Item2.Caption
            Set oItemPic = ctlImageBag1.GetPictureClone(epics_second)
    End Select
End Sub

If you change a Top Level menu item caption after having called the [Attach] method of the usercontrol, you need to use the [Refresh] method to refresh menu items.
This because there isn't a way to do such as thing automatically.
If you change all other menu items you don't need to do anything.