Now that I've coughed up the price of the MFC version of PropertyGrid I've got the sources , so I've revisited it to see if it would be easy enough to change the base class to get grid items coloured.

I fell foul of include ordering so I opted for this slightly odd approach: I added a virtual method to the class CXTPPropertyGridItem to get the background colour for that item.

virtual void GetBackgroundColour(COLORREF & clr) { }

and changed the CXTPPropertyGridPaintManager::DrawItem to use that colour

COLORREF clrWindow = pView->m_clrBack;   <-- existing line     pItem->GetBackgroundColour(clrWindow);    <--- added line

That meant that nothing changed until I had my own class RangeCheckedGridItemNumber derived CXTPPropertyGridItemNumber from that overrode the  mehtod

void RangeCheckedGridItemNumber::GetBackgroundColour(COLORREF & clr) {     clr = RGB(0,255,0);  // very green }

Obviously you can have any logic you like in your method. I quite like the solution since it is a minimal change, but it does change the library; I hope the next release will have its own SetBackgroundColor() method instead

Colin

hpesata wrote: I am looking for a way to also color the item-caption, not only the value. Do You have any idea on how to do that ?

I had hoped it would be easy but I haven't exactly managed it. The closest I could get involved my own class derived from CXTPPropertyGridPaintManager

class CColorItemPaintManager : public CXTPPropertyGridPaintManager { public:     CColorItemPaintManager(CXTPPropertyGrid* pGrid);     virtual ~CColorItemPaintManager();     virtual void DrawItem(PDRAWITEMSTRUCT lpDrawItemStruct); };

which I set in to the property grid when I created it

if ( m_wndPropertyGrid.Create( rc, this, IDC_PROPERTY_GRID ) ) {     m_pPaintManager = new CColorItemPaintManager(&m_wndPropertyGrid);     m_wndPropertyGrid.SetCustomTheme(m_pPaintManager);

and then, as an example, override DrawItem to splat red down on the selected row.

void CColorItemPaintManager::DrawItem(PDRAWITEMSTRUCT lpDrawItemStruct) {     if (ODS_SELECTED == (ODS_SELECTED & lpDrawItemStruct->itemState))     {         CRect rc = lpDrawItemStruct->rcItem;         CDC dc;         dc.Attach(lpDrawItemStruct->hDC);         dc.FillSolidRect(rc, RGB(255,0,0));         dc.Detach();     }     else     {         CXTPPropertyGridPaintManager::DrawItem(lpDrawItemStruct);     } }

The grid item value is still getting painted nicely but the caption is just a solid red rectangle. Filling it in nicely needs a fair bit more work - see Samples\PropertyGrid\OwnerDraw\SimpleGridPage.cpp for its DrawItem code.

Good luck!

Colin

oleg wrote: You can: 1. Create custom item inherited from CXTPPropertyGridItem 2. Override OnDrawItemValue

I'd also like to see a sinple way to set the background color, but the suggestion worked for me. In my case I wanted a simple valid / invalid coloring of items (numeric items outside a min to max range)

I always find code examples handy; so I have a class dervied from the ...GridItemNumber that adds range checking by looking at the ::SetValue string to set bool m_valid. The draw override uses it like this:

BOOL RangeCheckedGridItemNumber::OnDrawItemValue(CDC& dc, CRect rcValue) {  if (!m_valid)  {   // Highlight in red for invalid items   CBrush red(RGB(255,128,128));   dc.FillRect(rcValue, &red);  }  return CXTPPropertyGridItemNumber::OnDrawItemValue(dc, rcValue); }

Keep up the good work

Colin

Thanks, that good enough for me!

Regards,

Kevin.

Thanks Oleg, but you avoided my other question!

I have quite a large application to write and could leave the colouring for now and come back to it later. But I would need to know if 10.0 was 3, 6, 12+ months away. Just a general idea would do.

Regards,

Kevin.

You can:

1. Create custom item inherited from CXTPPropertyGridItem

2. Override OnDrawItemValue

or

1 Create custom pain manager inherited from CXTPPropertyGridPaintManager

2. Override void DrawItem(PDRAWITEMSTRUCT lpDrawItemStruct)

I also have this problem. Is there a work around for now that you can suggest?

(Also when is the planned release date for 10.0?)

Regards,

Kevin.