Hello,

I'm trying to force a scrollbar to appear on left side of window by
setting the WS_EX_LEFTSCROLLBAR style. This works great on all my test
computers except for win nt 4.0 (due to missing support for hebrew
etc. languages, which allow the left style scrollbar).

My question is, if anyone knows how the fake a hebrew language
instyallation within a program to force this style through?

Thanks,
Michael

"Michael Kristensen" <mivsen@stofanet.dk> wrote in message
news:b1ead7a3.0311110104.7fdf4e44@posting.google.c om...
You can't.

This is Windows' way of telling you, "don't do this". A lot of the UI
inflexibilities in Windows are there to enforce a common look and feel. One
'rule' is that scroll bars *always* appear on the right and bottom of
windows. If Windows let you easily put scroll bars anywhere around a window,
we'd have all kinds of different applications which all worked a different
way. Already your application is different from all other Windows
applications, so the user is forced to learn a special way of working for
yours.

--
Tim Robinson (MVP, Windows SDK)
http://www.themobius.co.uk/

On 11 Nov 2003 01:04:57 -0800, mivsen@stofanet.dk (Michael Kristensen)
wrote:

Do yourself a favor and get a 2nd machine which supports
bidirectionality. You will most likely find there a lots of other
issues you will have to deal with which have nothing to do with scroll
bars. If this is not a toy application, it will be well worth the
investment.

For example, Hebrew text is stored in byte-ascending order in RAM just
like Western European languages are. Only when it is displayed,
Windows will render the glyphs from right to left. However, if you
make the naïve assumption that your text should be stored in reverse
order because it is displayed that way, you will have a big surprise
the first time you run your program on a machine/OS which has this
support built in. Not only that, but things like dates and numbers are
written from left to right even within the context of a right-to-left
language (at least in Hebrew they are ... Arabic also has different
numbers than Hebrew, I don't really know how they are rendered).

I assume that the issue is the same with things like scroll bars; the
OS probably decides where they should be placed. Don't fight it.


--
Bob Hairgrove
NoSpamPlease@Home.com

Thanks for your reply.

I know of the standard UI. Have studies HCI for years. However my
application is rather experimental and is NOT just a toy. However -
for it to function properly and more intuitive, some windows must have
left scrollbars and some right scrollbars no matter the locale
settings. Im not allowed to go into details here of why this is so.

The app is doing splendid in user tests and users from different
countries have no problems with the scrollbar alignement whatsoever.

Generally I all for standard component look and feel, but in some
cases you may be forced to make exceptions - especially if its not
just build of a standard list and treeview :-)

Thanks for your interest in this. I guess we have to develop seperate
scrollbars for the windows that need scrolling, disable them on the
windows and sync the seperate scrollbars with them. Cause - yes - in
our case its only a scrollbar issue.

Thanks,
Michael

"Tim Robinson" <tim.at.gaat.freeserve.co.uk@invalid.com> wrote in message
news:boqhic$1h5gpj$1@ID-103400.news.uni-berlin.de...
the norm but i am sure a left handed person might find it better if the bar
was on the left. this should be a choice of the programming team and not of
Microsoft.

"Starr" <Starr@polaris.org> wrote in message
news:botaue$ivg$0@pita.alt.net...
If there is a choice, it should be up to the user. Something as fundamental
as the placement of a scroll bar changes how the UI works, so it's better to
standardize on one layout -- even if its wrong -- than to allow each program
to do it a different way.

--
Tim Robinson (MVP, Windows SDK)
http://www.themobius.co.uk/

I'd rather say it's Microsoft's way to say: "HAHA once again you got
screwed".
Sorry to say, but this is just silly. Mostly because many left handed
people (like myself) feel more comfortable with left scroll bars...
and NOPE I don't speak chineese og hebrew :-)

You know of our application?? - Cheer! Actually, our user tests have
show remarkable fast learning curce. Mostly because its actually very
simple to use.

Thx for the input though.

Michael

Michael Kristensen wrote:
Maybe a left hand community (and I don't mean in political terms)
should raise its voice on MS to undo this dreaded injustice... and
include "handness" in locale settings.

Agree :-)
I actually wonder how MS overlooked that fact that left handed
community is a rather large part of the computer using population.
Aynway not my issue here. Just need to force a scrollbar to improve my
GUI (sounds simple - but isn't).

Michael