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;
   }