Visually indicating the active control (for controls that don’t show focus rect)

Question

I’m writing a little Windows application which has two list-view-controls. I have set it up so that the user can tab (focus) between the two, but I need a way of visually indicating which is the active control. I don’t want to go to the trouble of messing with owner-drawn controls, so I experimented with some of the different window styles like border and client edge, but none look good. I decided to toggle the disabled property because it looks best and is easy to use.

The problem now is that I have the controls set up so that whenever the user clicks on either one, it grabs the focus (calls SetFocus(), sets a handle to itself, etc.) but of course, disabled controls don’t get event notifications like mouse clicks.

Does anyone have a suggestion on how I can retain the visual distinction of the active control and also be able to toggle the active window with the mouse?

Answer 1

Hans’ suggestion of using CTRLCOLOR reminded me of using that a long time ago to easily make some changes to the colors of controls which then reminded me of CustomDraw.

I decided to use CustomDraw to indicate the currently active control because it is even easier, and yet provides even better control.