Changing the Color of Edit and Combobox Controls in ATL

Simply follow these steps in order to change the color of the Edit control or Combobox control in ATL.

  1. Add a handler for WM_CTLCOLOREDIT
    MESSAGE_HANDLER(WM_CTLCOLOREDIT, OnCtlColorEdit)
    
  2. Implementation of the handler, return the brush that u want to use to color the control
    LRESULT OnCtlColorEdit(UINT uMsg,
                           WPARAM wParam,
                           LPARAM lParam,
                           BOOL& bHandled)
    {
     HDC hdcEdit = (HDC) wParam;    // handle to display context 
     HWND hwndEdit = (HWND) lParam; // handle to static control 
    
     if (( hwndEdit == GetDlgItem(IDC_EDIT)
     || ( hwndEdit == GetDlgItem(IDC_COMBO))
     {
      // m_hBrush is an instance variable that stores the
      // current Color brush. If this is the first time through
      // we need to create it. The brush is deleted in the destructor
      if ( m_hBrush == NULL )
       m_hBrush = CreateSolidBrush( RGB(255,0,0)
     )
    
      // Get the DC provided and set the appropriate attributes
    
      SetBkMode(hdcEdit, TRANSPARENT );
      SetBkColor(hdcEdit, RGB(255,0,0));
    
      // Return a handle to the brush
      HBRUSH far* hbr = (HBRUSH far*) m_hBrush;
      return ((DWORD) hbr);
     }
     return 0;
    }
    

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