The ColorButton control is one of several really powerful and easy to use controls that are available from this store, and that fulfill a niche in the Pocket PC control market.

The ColorButton control is designed to be flexible and easy to implement and allows Pocket PC developers the power of adding color buttons to their forms thereby enhancing the visual appeal and professional look of their applications.

The Color Button control not only allows the Mobile developer the flexibility of incorporating his or her own color buttons, but it provides some ready made color buttons that are ready to be implemented, thereby allowing the Mobile developer instant access to colorful buttons once the product has been installed on their PC.

Another great feature of this product is the selection of icons that are installed free on the Mobile developer's desktop when you install the Color Button control, that can be added to any of the color buttons you create using this product.

Installation of the ColorButton control is straight forward, and is done using the latest installer technology and can be uninstalled using the usual Pocket PC uninstall facilities. By following the instructions given below you will find the color button control easy to install and easy to use or modify.

A short demonstration of the use of the Color Button control is available by clicking on this image.

Forums dedicated to answering any questions you may have are available on DEVBUZZ.com and there is a link provided at the bottom of this page.

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:

ColorButton for the Pocket PC runs on Windows Mobile 2003, and Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition, and Windows Mobile 5 (any version of ActiveSync).

ORDERING THE COLOR BUTTON CONTROL:

DEVBUZZ.com Ordering the Color Button control off the DEVBUZZ.com website will enable you to download the Color Button control directly off the DEVBUZZ.com website.

INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE COLOR BUTTON CONTROL:

Once you have ordered and downloaded the Color Button control you will need to unzip the ColorButton.zip file that was downloaded to your PC.

Move the ColorButton.zip file to the directory you wish to unzip and install the Color Button control to.

Unzip the ColorButton.zip file. Unzipping this file will create a directory called ColorButton which has 3 subdirectories under it :

• ColorButton.2003
• ColorButton.2005
• ColorButton.Graphics

If you have Visual Studio 2003 installed you will need to use the installer package that you find in the Colorbutton.2003 subdirectory. Double click the installation file which is called ColorButtonControl.Deployment.msi.

If you have Visual Studio 2005 you will need to install the 2005 version of the Color Button control which you will find in the ColorButton.2005 subdirectory. Double click the Windows installer package
you find there which in this case is called ColorButton2005.Deployment.msi

When you run the installation program you will get instructions describing how to include this control in your project and where to find the necessary files.

If you follow these instructions the Color Button control will be added to your toolbox and you can drag the colorbutton control onto a form and begin to use it.

Here is a copy of the instructions you are given for reference purposes:

COLOR BUTTON CONTROL

Please copy this text as you may need it later!

1. Create a new Smart Device Solution/Project in Visual Studio .NET

2. Right click on the toolbar and select Add/Remove Items

3. Click the Browse button and select:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003\CompactFrameworkSDK\v1.0.5000\Windows CE\Designer\ColorButtonControl.Design.dll

4. Code Samples

C# .NET & VB .NET:
// All properties identical to the normal button with additional color properties implemented:

BackColor
BackDownColor
ForeColor
ForeDownColor

5. Deploy your project adding the runtime .dll to the project directory or register it on the handheld device during installation.
The runtime .dll can be found in the C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003\CompactFrameworkSDK\v1.0.5000\Windows CE\ directory.

Please refer to the forums for FAQs and to ask any questions you may have.

Once the ColorButton control has been added to your toolbox, you can drag the control onto your form and begin to specify what you would like it to look like.

The color button control is very versatile. You can either make use of the backcolor, backdowncolor in combination with the forecolor and foredowncolor properties to specify what you would like the color button to look like when it is in a rest state and what it will look like in a clicked state, or you can create system.drawing.bitmap files for the rest state and the clicked state of your button and you can map to these files in the ImageDown and ImageUp properties. The ImageUp property is very intuitively the image for the button in its "up" or rest state, and the ImageDown property is for the "clicked" or "down" state of the button.

Several pre-created buttons have been included with this control so that you can very easily add some great looking buttons to your forms, without having to make them yourself. These buttons can be found in the ColorButton.Graphics>Buttons directory.

A great feature of the color button control is the easy way in which icons can be added to buttons to create added visual effect and to enhance the user's experience. Several icons have also been included with this control for you to use in creating a visually intuitive button should you wish to do so.

The icons can be found in the ColorButton.Graphics>Icons subdirectory.

In the ColorButtons.graphics>buttons directory you will see how easy it is to choose and ImageDown and ImageUp image file for these properties. Each pair of button states is similarly named such as 1-1.gif and 1-2.gif. Where the first first number indicates that the button is the same button, and the second number indicates the different states of the button. By selecting this pair you very easily get the look you want - that of a button being pressed (or clicked).

This is a very intuitive control to use and the effect is really eye catching.

Getting started with the Color Button Control.