Blog

A number of controls within .NETCF have built in ScrollBars. Occasionally you may want to operate these programmatically on behalf of the user. When you do this you want both the control to scroll and the scrollbars to correctly reflect the current position. Faced with this requirement I found a solution in the WM_VSCROLL (and equivalent HSCROLL) message. You can send this message to the native handle of your control along with a number of present constants to offer hands-free scrolling. Along the way I discovered that to work you must have the handle of the native control which implements the scroll bars. In the case of the WebBrowser this is a grand-child of the outer managed control so we have to use the native GetWindow API call to get down to the right HWND. I wrapped this up in a class I’ve called ScrollBarHelper which allows the user to move left, right, up and down. The code for the class is:-

/// <summary>
/// Helper class to programmatically operate scrollbars.
/// </summary>
public class ScrollBarHelper
{
  private IntPtr handle;


  public ScrollBarHelper(Control c)
  {
    if (c is WebBrowser)
    {
      //special case for complex control
      //get the inner IE control
      IntPtr hInternetExplorer = NativeMethods.GetWindow(c.Handle, NativeMethods.GW.CHILD);
      //get the first child (status bar)
      IntPtr hStatus = NativeMethods.GetWindow(hInternetExplorer, NativeMethods.GW.CHILD);
      //get the html body area
      handle = NativeMethods.GetWindow(hStatus, NativeMethods.GW.HWNDNEXT);
    }
    else
    {
      handle = c.Handle;
    }
  }



public void LineRight()
{
  SendMessage(NativeMethods.WM_HSCROLL, NativeMethods.SB_LINEDOWN);
}
public void LineLeft()
{
  SendMessage(NativeMethods.WM_HSCROLL, NativeMethods.SB_LINEUP);
}

public void PageRight()
{
  SendMessage(NativeMethods.WM_HSCROLL, NativeMethods.SB_PAGEDOWN);
}
public void PageLeft()
{
  SendMessage(NativeMethods.WM_HSCROLL, NativeMethods.SB_PAGEUP);
}

public void LineDown()
{
  SendMessage(NativeMethods.WM_VSCROLL, NativeMethods.SB_LINEDOWN);
}
public void LineUp()
{
  SendMessage(NativeMethods.WM_VSCROLL, NativeMethods.SB_LINEUP);
}

public void PageDown()
{
  SendMessage(NativeMethods.WM_VSCROLL, NativeMethods.SB_PAGEDOWN);
}
public void PageUp()
{
  SendMessage(NativeMethods.WM_VSCROLL, NativeMethods.SB_PAGEUP);
}

private void SendMessage(int msg, int value)
{
  Microsoft.WindowsCE.Forms.Message m = Microsoft.WindowsCE.Forms.Message.Create(handle, msg, (IntPtr)value, handle);
  Microsoft.WindowsCE.Forms.MessageWindow.PostMessage(ref m);
}

[DllImport(“coredll.dll”)]
internal static extern IntPtr GetWindow(IntPtr hWnd, GW uCmd);

internal enum GW : int
{
  HWNDFIRST = 0,
  HWNDLAST = 1,
  HWNDNEXT = 2,
  HWNDPREV = 3,
  OWNER = 4,
  CHILD = 5,
}

//scrollbar messages
internal const int WM_HSCROLL = 0x0114;
internal const int WM_VSCROLL = 0x0115;

//constants for scrollbar actions
internal const int SB_LINEUP = 0;
internal const int SB_LINEDOWN = 1;
internal const int SB_PAGEUP = 2;
internal const int SB_PAGEDOWN = 3;

}

In order to use the control you create a new instance passing it the control of your choice. Then call methods to scroll the control e.g.

The control contains methods to Scroll via single lines or pages at a time, I didn’t get around to looking at setting the explicit value of the scrollbar control, but this should be possible also – refer to the documentation for WM_VSCROLL for how to pass the value.