The clock applet that comes with Microsoft Plus! has an interesting feature: Its window is round instead of rectangular. Surprisingly, giving your form an odd shape is easy. Add this code to a new form to give your window the shape of the Microsoft Windows logo:
Private Type RECT Left As Long Top As Long Right As Long Bottom As LongEnd TypePrivate Declare Function BeginPath Lib "gdi32" _ (ByVal hdc As Long) As LongPrivate Declare Function TextOut Lib "gdi32" _ Alias "TextOutA" (ByVal hdc As Long, _ ByVal X As Long, ByVal Y As Long, _ ByVal lpString As String, _ ByVal nCount As Long) As LongPrivate Declare Function EndPath Lib "gdi32" _ (ByVal hdc As Long) As LongPrivate Declare Function PathToRegion Lib "gdi32" _ (ByVal hdc As Long) As LongPrivate Declare Function GetRgnBox Lib "gdi32" _ (ByVal hRgn As Long, lpRect As RECT) As LongPrivate Declare Function CreateRectRgnIndirect Lib "gdi32" _ (lpRect As RECT) As LongPrivate Declare Function CombineRgn Lib "gdi32" _ (ByVal hDestRgn As Long, ByVal hSrcRgn1 As Long, _ ByVal hSrcRgn2 As Long, _ ByVal nCombineMode As Long) As LongPrivate Const RGN_AND = 1Private Declare Function DeleteObject Lib "gdi32" _ (ByVal hObject As Long) As LongPrivate Declare Function SetWindowRgn Lib "user32" _ (ByVal hwnd As Long, ByVal hRgn As Long, _ ByVal bRedraw As Boolean) As LongPrivate Declare Function ReleaseCapture Lib "user32" _ () As LongPrivate Declare Function SendMessage Lib "user32" _ Alias "SendMessageA" (ByVal hwnd As Long, _ ByVal wMsg As Long, ByVal wParam As Long, _ lParam As Any) As LongPrivate Const WM_NCLBUTTONDOWN = &HA1Private Const HTCAPTION = 2Private Function GetTextRgn() As Long Dim hRgn1 As Long, hRgn2 As Long Dim rct As RECT 'Create a path for the window's shape BeginPath hdc TextOut hdc, 10, 10, Chr$(255), 1 EndPath hdc '... Convert the path to a region... hRgn1 = PathToRegion(hdc) GetRgnBox hRgn1, rct hRgn2 = CreateRectRgnIndirect(rct) CombineRgn hRgn2, hRgn2, hRgn1, RGN_AND 'Return the region handle DeleteObject hRgn1 GetTextRgn = hRgn2End FunctionPrivate Sub Form_DblClick() 'Need to be able to close the form Unload MeEnd SubPrivate Sub Form_Load() Dim hRgn As Long Me.Font.Name = "Wingdings" Me.Font.Size = 200 hRgn = GetTextRgn() SetWindowRgn hwnd, hRgn, 1End SubPrivate Sub Form_MouseDown(Button As Integer, Shift _ As Integer, X As Single, Y As Single) 'Give us some way to move the form ReleaseCapture SendMessage hwnd, WM_NCLBUTTONDOWN, HTCAPTION, ByVal 0&End SubWhile this is a sort of novelty shape for a form, you can give a form any shape you want, provided you have a way to create the shape of the region. Look at the various region-related API calls to find methods of creating regions other than using font characters.
