Button background transparency using Win32 and Visual Styles

Question

Edit: If anyone's tried this in win32 before, am I going in the right direction by using DrawThemeBackground()?

I'v recently enabled Visual Styles using a manifest for version 6 of ComCtl32.dll. Example of Visual Styles in Win32: Visual Styles

The buttons look great, but I can't figure out how to make the background around the buttons transparent. Please see example image: http://www.freeimagehosting.net/image.php?2bdeff33ba.jpg

My main window background color is set to dark grey with:

a.hbrBackground = GetStockObject(DKGRAY_BRUSH);

The common controls are initialized with:

INITCOMMONCONTROLSEX stylesStruct;
stylesStruct.dwSize = sizeof(stylesStruct);
stylesStruct.dwICC = ICC_STANDARD_CLASSES;
InitCommonControlsEx(&stylesStruct);

And I create the button windows with:

j = CreateWindow(L"BUTTON", L"hello",
    WS_VISIBLE | WS_CHILD | BS_DEFPUSHBUTTON, 100, 100,
    100, 100, h, 0, hInst, 0);

Buttons look fine over a white background, but the border becomes visible over anything else. Is it possible to make the border around buttons transparent?

Answer 1

Have you tried WS_EX_TRANSPARENT?

I think you can set it in the resource editor in Visual Studio, if you're using that.