Windows Common Controls

General Purpose Controls

There are three general purpose controls: the Slider, ProgressBar, and Tab controls.

Figure 12.4 The Slider, the Progress Bar, and the Tab

Slider

The Slider control can be used to adjust intensity levels such as volume or brightness. It consists of a bar that defines the range of the adjustment and an arrow that indicates the current value for the control. The arrow can be used to adjust the value. Users move the slider arrow by dragging it with the mouse or the arrow keys. For example, the Volume Control accessory uses a Slider to adjust the volume going from your sound card to your speakers .

ProgressBar

The ProgressBar control shows the completion percentage of a particular process by filling from left to right. Microsoft Word for Windows displays a ProgressBar when a file is being saved to disk. A ProgressBar is frequently used by installation programs to show the progress of the installation.

Tab

Windows includes a notebook-like Tab control for simple navigation between logical "pages" or sections of information. Tab controls are also used in conjunction with property sheets in the Windows interface. You can set the maximum number of rows of tabs to be displayed, and can scroll them horizontally.