Question

Could anyone could point me to some code/give me ideas on how to create a smooth scrolling vertical marquee for VFP 8 or 9?

Any help is appreciated.

Answer 1

Here’s a quick program that will scroll messages. Put the following in a prg file and run it.

I’d make a containerScrollArea a class that encapsulates the timer, labels, and scrolling code. Give it GetNextMessage method that you can override to retrieve the messages.

* Put a container on the screen to hold our scroller _screen.AddObject('containerScrollArea', 'container')  WITH _Screen.containerScrollArea     * Size it     .Visible = .t.     .Width = 100     .Height = 100      * Add two labels, one to hold each scrolling message     .AddObject('labelScroll1', 'Label')      .AddObject('labelScroll2', 'Label')       * This timer will move the labels to scroll them     .AddObject('timerScroller', 'ScrollTimer') ENDWITH  WITH _Screen.containerScrollArea.labelScroll1     * The labels are positioned below the margin of the container, so they're not initially visible     .Top = 101     .Height = 100     .Visible = .t.     .WordWrap = .t.     .BackStyle= 0     .Caption = 'This is the first scrolling text, which is scrolling.' ENDWITH  WITH _Screen.containerScrollArea.labelScroll2     * The labels are positioned below the margin of the container, so they're not initially visible     .Top = 200     .Height = 100     .Visible = .t.     .WordWrap = .t.     .BackStyle= 0     .Caption = 'This is the second scrolling text, which is scrolling.' ENDWITH  * Start the timer, which scrolls the labels _Screen.containerScrollArea.timerScroller.Interval = 100   DEFINE CLASS ScrollTimer AS Timer     PROCEDURE Timer          * If the first label is still in view, move it by one pixel         IF This.Parent.labelScroll1.Top > -100             This.Parent.labelScroll1.Top = This.Parent.labelScroll1.Top - 1         ELSE             * If the first label has scrolled out of view on the top of the container, move it back to the bottom.             This.Parent.labelScroll1.Top = 101             * Load some new text here         ENDIF          IF This.Parent.labelScroll2.Top > -100             * If the second label is still in view, move it by one pixel             This.Parent.labelScroll2.Top = This.Parent.labelScroll2.Top - 1         ELSE             * If the second label has scrolled out of view on the top of the container, move it back to the bottom.             This.Parent.labelScroll2.Top = 101             * Load some new text here         ENDIF     ENDPROC ENDDEFINE