Not rectangular picture box

[neosonic]

I put one smaller picture box inside the bigger picturebox.

The annoying thing is, I cannot have a good picture, because the my smaller picture is in rectangle shape, while the smaller picture box is in square. So there is a residual space in the smaller picture box that I cannot use and it covers some important parts in the bigger picture box.

How can I shape the smaller picture box, so there is nasty white residual in the smaller picture box?
or.. how can I make it transparent, so the important part in the bigger picture box is not covered?

thanks

neosonic

[AndreRet]

you can "wipe" the parts that is not part of the actual picture -

'Add the following code in a module

Option Explicit

Public Declare Function GetPixel Lib "gdi32" (ByVal hDC As Long, ByVal X As Long, ByVal Y As Long) As Long
Public Declare Function SetWindowRgn Lib "user32" (ByVal hWnd As Long, ByVal hRgn As Long, ByVal bRedraw As Boolean) As Long
Public Declare Function CreateRectRgn Lib "gdi32" (ByVal X1 As Long, ByVal Y1 As Long, ByVal X2 As Long, ByVal Y2 As Long) As Long
Public Declare Function CombineRgn Lib "gdi32" (ByVal hDestRgn As Long, ByVal hSrcRgn1 As Long, ByVal hSrcRgn2 As Long, ByVal nCombineMode As Long) As Long
Public Declare Function SendMessage Lib "user32" Alias "SendMessageA" (ByVal hWnd As Long, ByVal wMsg As Long, ByVal wParam As Long, lParam As Any) As Long
Public Declare Function ReleaseCapture Lib "user32" () As Long
Public Declare Function DeleteObject Lib "gdi32" (ByVal hObject As Long) As Long
Public Const RGN_OR = 2
Public Const WM_NCLBUTTONDOWN = &HA1
Public Const HTCAPTION = 2

Public Function MakeRegion(picSkin As PictureBox) As Long
    
    ' Make a windows "region" based on a given picture box'
    ' picture. This done by passing on the picture line-
    ' by-line and for each sequence of non-transparent
    ' pixels a region is created that is added to the
    ' complete region. I tried to optimize it so it's
    ' fairly fast, but some more optimizations can
    ' always be done - mainly storing the transparency
    ' data in advance, since what takes the most time is
    ' the GetPixel calls, not Create/CombineRgn
    
    Dim X As Long, Y As Long, StartLineX As Long
    Dim FullRegion As Long, LineRegion As Long
    Dim TransparentColor As Long
    Dim InFirstRegion As Boolean
    Dim InLine As Boolean  ' Flags whether we are in a non-tranparent pixel sequence
    Dim hDC As Long
    Dim PicWidth As Long
    Dim PicHeight As Long
    
    hDC = picSkin.hDC
    PicWidth = picSkin.ScaleWidth
    PicHeight = picSkin.ScaleHeight
    
    InFirstRegion = True: InLine = False
    X = Y = StartLineX = 0
    
    ' The transparent color is always the color of the
    ' top-left pixel in the picture. If you wish to
    ' bypass this constraint, you can set the tansparent
    ' color to be a fixed color (such as pink), or
    ' user-configurable
    TransparentColor = GetPixel(hDC, 0, 0)
    
    For Y = 0 To PicHeight - 1
        For X = 0 To PicWidth - 1
            
            If GetPixel(hDC, X, Y) = TransparentColor Or X = PicWidth Then
                ' We reached a transparent pixel
                If InLine Then
                    InLine = False
                    LineRegion = CreateRectRgn(StartLineX, Y, X, Y + 1)
                    
                    If InFirstRegion Then
                        FullRegion = LineRegion
                        InFirstRegion = False
                    Else
                        CombineRgn FullRegion, FullRegion, LineRegion, RGN_OR
                        ' Always clean up your mess
                        DeleteObject LineRegion
                    End If
                End If
            Else
                ' We reached a non-transparent pixel
                If Not InLine Then
                    InLine = True
                    StartLineX = X
                End If
            End If
        Next
    Next
    
    MakeRegion = FullRegion
End Function

'In your form, the following code

Option Explicit

Private Sub Command1_Click()
    MsgBox "This is a real working form!"
End Sub

Private Sub Form_Load()
    Dim WindowRegion As Long
    
    ' I set all these settings here so you won't forget
    ' them and have a non-working demo... Set them in
    ' design time
    picMainSkin.ScaleMode = vbPixels
    picMainSkin.AutoRedraw = True
    picMainSkin.AutoSize = True
    picMainSkin.BorderStyle = vbBSNone
    Me.BorderStyle = vbBSNone
        
    Set picMainSkin.Picture = LoadPicture(App.Path & "\main.bmp")
    
    Me.Width = picMainSkin.Width
    Me.Height = picMainSkin.Height
    
    WindowRegion = MakeRegion(picMainSkin)
    SetWindowRgn Me.hWnd, WindowRegion, True
End Sub

Private Sub picMainSkin_MouseDown(Button As Integer, Shift As Integer, X As Single, Y As Single)
      
      ' Pass the handling of the mouse down message to
      ' the (non-existing really) form caption, so that
      ' the form itself will be dragged when the picture is dragged.
      '
      ' If you have Win 98, Make sure that the "Show window
      ' contents while dragging" display setting is on for nice results.
      
      ReleaseCapture
      SendMessage Me.hWnd, WM_NCLBUTTONDOWN, HTCAPTION, 0&

End Sub

[AndreRet]

The above code will skin the picture.:)

[AndreRet]

Has this solved your problem Neosonic? If so, please mark this as solved, found at the bottom of this page, thanks.:)

[neosonic]

Thanks mate :) Sorry for late reply, it really work, thanks a lot :)

[AndreRet]

Only a pleasure.:)