As evidenced by various versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer, Microsoft is adopting a new toolbar look. Toolbars with this new style are often referred to as "coolbars." Coolbar icons appear flat until the mouse is positioned over them. Coolbars are available as enhancements to the Windows 95 common controls DLL (COMCTL32.DLL).
With Visual C++ version 6 being released, VC++ programmers will have more complete access to the new features in COMCTL32.DLL. However, for those still using VC++ version 5, here is a quick and dirty way to add coolbars to your existing VC++ applications.
In short, coolbars are simply a new style to the existing toolbar control. While several techniques support the new coolbar look, the only thing you really need is to set the new style, TBSTYLE_FLAT. Unfortunately, you cannot set this style using CToolBar::Create or CToolBar:: SetBarStyle. The CToolBar class does not support TBSTYLE_FLAT and, in fact, will clear this style bit if you try to set it. No problem though. You can bypass CToolBar and just use CWnd::ModifyStyle.
// Set "coolbar" style (must bypass CToolBar methods
// as they don't support this style)
m_wndToolBar.ModifyStyle(0, TBSTYLE_FLAT);
This is all you need. You should place these lines in CMainFrame::OnCreate after you've created your toolbar. I've tried this on Windows 98 and haven't run across any problems. Of course, if the user doesn't have the newer version of COMCTL32.DLL on their system, this style won't be supported. But it is an easy way to add the new coolbar look on systems that do.
