This is just another gradient ActiveX control, with a few features that I have never found in other gradient controls, like the ability of acting as a title bar and moving the form in which it is placed, supporting transparent controls without problems or being able to make the gradient between any two colors.

History:

• 20.07.2001, version 1.05: Fixed a bug in the alignment of the caption. Also, the gradient routine has been improved to yield better results.
• 30.06.2001, version 1.04: Solved a bug that made the control not handle system colors properly. Added the caption property and other properties related: Font, ForeColor, Alignment, VerticalAlignment, ShowCaption. Added the GradientSteps property to allow a better control of how the gradient is shown.
• 30.05.1998, version 1.03: There was a major problem with the previous version of this control that finally I have been able to solve. This problem was as follows: if you place this control over a form and set its MoveForm property to True, dragging the control will move the form. But if you put a label over the gradient, dragging this label will not move the form, which is not the correct behaviour that it should have. Now, you can put a label (or other objects) over it and dragging these object will also move the form on which the control is placed when the MoveForm property of the gradient is set to True.
• 25.04.1998, version 1.02: Fixed a bug that made the control not refresh itself properly after changing properties. Also added the Refresh method.
• 08.03.1998, version 1.01: Fixed a problem that made the control not repaint itself properly after reading its properties.

IMPORTANT NOTE: After version 1.03, the control is not compatible with the previous versions (I keep having these problems with Visual Basic, that seem not to be solved after SP3). Therefore, if you want to use it in programs in which you were already using any of the previous versions, you will have to compile the program again, against this last version. You will also have to introduce in the registry of your computer the information in the REG file, even if you already did this for any of the previous versions. If you don't do this you will not be able to use the control at design-time.

Properties:

• Align: With this property you can align the control to the top, bottom, left or right part of the form in which it is placed.
• Alignment: sets the horizontal alignment of the caption that may be vbLeftJustify, vbRightJustify or vbCenter.
• Border: None or FixedSingle.
• Caption: text that will be shown if ShowCaption is True.
• Color: Starting color for the gradient.
• FinColor: Ending color for the gradient (Spanish).
• Font: font that will be used to show the caption.
• ForeColor: color that will be used to show the caption.
• GradientSteps: Number of steps that will be used to make the gradient. Sometimes you get a better quality when increasing this number, but other times it might lead to strange results (usually when you use strange combinations of colors). The default value is right for most of the cases.
• MoveForm: When set to True, the control will act as a title bar, so you can move the form in which the control is placed.
• Orientation. You have four options: TopBottom, LeftRight, BottomTop and RightLeft.
• ShowCaption: if set to True, shows the caption.
• ToolTipText: text that will be showed when the pointer stays over the gradient.
• VerticalAlignment: sets the vertical alignment of the caption that may be Top, Bottom or Center.

Methods:

• Refresh. Use this method to refresh the gradient, although you shouldn't need it.

Also you can place other controls over this one (this control can act as a frame control). This is very useful when you want to put labels (including transparent ones) over it.

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