MFC - change text color of a cstatic text control

Question

Hi All,

How do you change the text color of a CStatic text control? Is there a simple way other that using the CDC::SetTextColor?

thanks...

Answer 1

Hi Owen,

unfortunately you won't find a SetTextColor method in the CStatic class. If you want to change the text color of a CStatic you will have to code a bit more.

In my opinion the best way is creating your own CStatic-derived class (CMyStatic) and there cacth the ON_WM_CTLCOLOR_REFLECT notification message.

BEGIN_MESSAGE_MAP(CMyStatic, CStatic)
    //{{AFX_MSG_MAP(CMyStatic)
    ON_WM_CTLCOLOR_REFLECT()
    //}}AFX_MSG_MAP
END_MESSAGE_MAP()

HBRUSH CColorStatic::CtlColor(CDC* pDC, UINT nCtlColor) 
{
    pDC->SetTextColor(RGB(255,0,0)); 

    return (HBRUSH)GetStockObject(NULL_BRUSH); 
}

Obviously you can use a member variable and a setter method to replace the red color (RGB(255,0,0)).

Regards.

Answer 2

@Javier's answer is a good one, but you can also implement ON_WM_CTLCOLOR in your dialog class, without having to create a new CStatic-derived class:

BEGIN_MESSAGE_MAP(CMyDialog, CDialog)
    //{{AFX_MSG_MAP(CMyDialog)
    ON_WM_CTLCOLOR()
    //}}AFX_MSG_MAP
END_MESSAGE_MAP()

HBRUSH CMyDialog::OnCtlColor(CDC* pDC, CWnd *pWnd, UINT nCtlColor)
{
    switch (nCtlColor)
    {
    case CTLCOLOR_STATIC:
        pDC->SetTextColor(RGB(255, 0, 0));
        return (HBRUSH)GetStockObject(NULL_BRUSH);
    default:
        return CDialog::OnCtlColor(pDC, pWnd, nCtlColor);
    }
}

Notice that the code above sets the text of all static controls in the dialog. But you can use the pWnd variable to filter the controls you want.