Automating A Settings Dialog Form

During the development of your project, the types and number of settings can grow and grow. With these routines, you can write the code once, then you usually won’t need to update this code even when you add new controls.

For each setting that you save, whether to the Registry or an INI, you’ll need to define “section” and “key” strings. See the help on GetSetting and/ or SaveSetting for examples.

For each control that you’ll use to maintain a setting, put the name of the “key” in the control’s TAG property. Put the default value of that key in the control itself at design time. For the section name, you must put your control into a container control with the desired “section” string in its own .TAG field. Often, this is actually very convenient, as controls get grouped into frames and other logical containers. When that isn’t fully effective, use any kind of invisible container which supports a .TAG property, or use the TAG of the form itself. I usually reserve that last tactic for the most general of settings.

Call GetOptions before showing the form to the user (I usually call it from form_load) and call PutOptions whenever you need to save settings.

Code

Public Sub GetOptions(Frm As Form)

Dim Ctrl As Control

    For Each Ctrl In Frm.Controls

        With Ctrl

            If .Enabled Then

                If Len(.Parent.Tag & .Tag) Then

                    If TypeOf Ctrl Is TextBox Then

                        .Text = Trim$(GetSettingString(.Parent.Tag, .Tag, .Text))

                        ElseIf TypeOf Ctrl Is CheckBox _

                            Or TypeOf Ctrl Is HScrollBar _

                            Or TypeOf Ctrl Is VScrollBar _

                            Then

                            .Value = GetSettingInt(.Parent.Tag, .Tag, .Value)

                    End If

                End If

            End If

        End With

    Next

End Sub

Public Sub PutOptions(Frm As Form)

Dim Ctrl As Control

    For Each Ctrl In Frm.Controls

        With Ctrl

            If .Enabled Then

                If Len(.Parent.Tag & .Tag) Then

                    If TypeOf Ctrl Is TextBox Then

                        SaveSettingString .Parent.Tag, .Tag, .Text

                        ElseIf TypeOf Ctrl Is CheckBox _

                            Or TypeOf Ctrl Is HScrollBar _

                            Or TypeOf Ctrl Is VScrollBar _

                            Then

                            SaveSettingInt .Parent.Tag, .Tag, .Value

                    End If

                End If

            End If

        End With

    Next

End Sub

You’ll need to include GetSettingInt, GetSettingString, SaveSettingInt, and SaveSettingString routines to save the settings to your own INI file.

Also, you can certainly adjust the code for other types of controls besides the TextBox, CheckBox, HScrollBar and VScrollBar.

Additional Code

'Set this public variable before you call GetOptions or PutOptions

Public gsIniFile As String

Declare Function GetPrivateProfileInt Lib "kernel32" Alias "GetPrivateProfileIntA" 
   (ByVal lpApplicationName As String, ByVal lpKeyName As String, ByVal nDefault As Long, 
    ByVal lpFileName As String) As Long

Declare Function GetPrivateProfileString Lib "kernel32" Alias "GetPrivateProfileStringA" 
   (ByVal lpApplicationName As String, ByVal lpKeyName As Any, ByVal lpDefault As String, 
    ByVal lpReturnedString As String, ByVal nSize As Long, ByVal lpFileName As String) As Long

Declare Function WritePrivateProfileString Lib "kernel32" Alias "WritePrivateProfileStringA" 
   (ByVal lpApplicationName As String, ByVal lpKeyName As Any, ByVal lpString As Any, 
    ByVal lpFileName As String) As Long

Private Function FixString(sInString As String) As String

Dim nPos As Integer

    On Error Resume Next

    nPos = InStr(sInString, Chr$(0))

    If nPos Then

        FixString = Left$(sInString, nPos - 1)

        Else

            FixString = sInString

    End If

End Function

Private Function GetSettingString(sSection As String, sKey As String, sDefault As String) As String

Const INI_BUF_SIZE = 255
Dim iReturn As Integer
Dim sBuffer As String

    On Error Resume Next

    sBuffer = String$(INI_BUF_SIZE + 1, 0)

    iReturn = GetPrivateProfileString(sSection, sKey, sDefault, sBuffer, INI_BUF_SIZE, gsIniFile)

    GetSettingString = FixString(sBuffer)

End Function

Private Function GetSettingInt(sSection As String, sKey As String, nDefault As Integer) As Integer

    On Error Resume Next

    GetSettingInt = GetPrivateProfileInt(sSection, sKey, nDefault, gsIniFile)

End Function

Private Function SaveSettingInt(sSection As String, sKey As String, nValue As Integer) As Boolean

    On Error Resume Next

    SaveSettingInt = IniPrivateWriteString(sSection, sKey, CStr(nValue), gsIniFile)

End Function

Private Function SaveSettingString(sSection As String, sKey As String, sValue As String) As Boolean

    On Error Resume Next

    SaveSettingString = IniPrivateWriteString(sSection, sKey, sValue, gsIniFile)

End Function

Private Function IniPrivateWriteString(sSection As String, sKey As String, 
   sValue As String, sIniFile As String) As Boolean

    On Error Resume Next

    If (Len(sKey) > 0) Then

        IniPrivateWriteString = (WritePrivateProfileString(sSection, sKey, sValue, sIniFile) <> 0)

        Else

        '----- Delete all keys in this section

        IniPrivateWriteString = (WritePrivateProfileString(sSection, vbNullString, sValue, sIniFile) <> 0)

    End If

End Function

 

Tip Submitted By: Bob O`Bob