Member Avatar for wookinhung

Hi all,

I want to display a picture by moving the mouse cursor on a label or picturebox without clicking on them... How can I do that?

PS: The picture would be big sized.

Regards,
wookinhung -VB noobie-

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Dani AI

Generated

A simple, reliable VB6 pattern that follows 's "hover" idea and avoids the API "mesh" warned about: create a small borderless preview form containing a PictureBox (set Stretch = True), show it modeless when the mouse moves over the Label or PictureBox, position it at the cursor with GetCursorPos (converted to twips), and use a short Timer to hide the preview when the cursor is no longer over the source control or the preview. This is lightweight, works with large pictures (preload them to avoid pauses), and fixes the "edge" hiding problems.

Example declarations / preload (place in the main form):

Private Type POINTAPI
  x As Long
  y As Long
End Type

Private Declare Function GetCursorPos Lib "user32" (lpPoint As POINTAPI) As Long

Private gPreviewPic As StdPicture ' optional: preload the big image once
' In Form_Load: Set gPreviewPic = LoadPicture("C:\Path\big.jpg")

MouseMove on the trigger control (Label or PictureBox):

Private Sub lblHot_MouseMove(Button As Integer, Shift As Integer, X As Single, Y As Single)
  Dim pt As POINTAPI
  GetCursorPos pt

  With frmPreview
    .picPreview.Stretch = True
    If Not gPreviewPic Is Nothing Then
      .picPreview.Picture = gPreviewPic
    Else
      .picPreview.Picture = LoadPicture("C:\Path\big.jpg")
    End If
    .Left = pt.x * Screen.TwipsPerPixelX + 20
    .Top  = pt.y * Screen.TwipsPerPixelY + 20
    .Show vbModeless
  End With

  tmrPreview.Enabled = True
End Sub

Timer check to hide when cursor leaves both areas (set Interval ~150 ms):

Private Sub tmrPreview_Timer()
  Dim pt As POINTAPI: GetCursorPos pt
  Dim xt As Long, yt As Long
  xt = pt.x * Screen.TwipsPerPixelX: yt = pt.y * Screen.TwipsPerPixelY

  Dim ctlL As Long, ctlT As Long, ctlR As Long, ctlB As Long
  ctlL = Me.Left + lblHot.Left: ctlT = Me.Top + lblHot.Top
  ctlR = ctlL + lblHot.Width: ctlB = ctlT + lblHot.Height

  Dim pvL As Long, pvT As Long, pvR As Long, pvB As Long
  pvL = frmPreview.Left: pvT = frmPreview.Top
  pvR = pvL + frmPreview.Width: pvB = pvT + frmPreview.Height

  If Not ((xt >= ctlL And xt <= ctlR And yt >= ctlT And yt <= ctlB) _
      Or (xt >= pvL And xt <= pvR And yt >= pvT And yt <= pvB)) Then
    tmrPreview.Enabled = False
    frmPreview.Hide
  End If
End Sub

Quick tips: set frmPreview.BorderStyle = 0, ShowInTaskbar = False; preload large images into a StdPicture to avoid load lag; adjust offsets and preview size to avoid covering important UI. For absolute pixel-perfect tracking or very odd edge cases, the Windows API (GetWindowRect / TrackMouseEvent) and subclassing give more control but are more complex.

Recommended Answers

All 8 Replies

Member Avatar for wookinhung

Hi again,

Can I have a simpler example instead? The link doesn't help much because I don't understand it at all...

wookinhung -VB noobie-

Member Avatar for Comatose

Probably is, you've pointed to VB.NET, this is vb 4/5/6

Member Avatar for ddanbe

Ooops! This was a slip of the tongue...
Sitting here very sorry and with red cheeks...:$

Member Avatar for wookinhung

Hey,

So can anyone help me on this? I'm using VB6 to develop my program but have yet to find any solutions...

wookinhung -VB noobie-

Member Avatar for Comatose

Yeah....

This is the easy way to do it, without the major headaches.... the other way to do is a little less "fluky" that is, sometimes if you are on the edge of the label, it might not always hide or something like that... try it out and see if it suits your needs. The alternative is to use an ugly mesh of API calls.

PicShow.zip (1090.72 KB)
Member Avatar for wookinhung

Hey again,

Oh I see... Thats how they do it... Well, thanks a lot!
+Rep

wookinhung -VB noobie-

Member Avatar for wookinhung

Hi again,

Well, that works. Thanks a lot for sharing!
+Rep

wookinhung -VB6 noobie-

commented: Questions Clear, And Didn't Need to be told to mark the thread as solved. You're Welcome ;) +10
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