* VB-CODE (1)
Tip 155: Scrolling Text Horizontally in a Picture Box Control

September 5, 1995

Abstract
This article explains how to scroll text horizontally within a Picture Box
control in Microsoft? Visual Basic?.

Creating a Scrolling Marquee Effect in Visual Basic
You can add visual effects to your Microsoft? Visual Basic? applications
that add interest or grab the user's attention. You can do this, for
example, by adding a scrolling message to your program to create a marquee
effect.

A scrolling message is a string of text that is continually displayed in a
control. To achieve this effect in your program, you can use the Timer and
Picture Box controls.
The Print function lets you display a character in a Picture Box control.
The character is printed at the current x- and y-coordinates within the
control. Therefore, to display an entire string in the Picture Box, you
first need to extract each character from the target string you want to
display. Then you can use the Print function to display that character in
the Picture Box control.

To make the text in the Picture Box scroll continuously, you simply keep
track of your position within the target string. When you reach the end of
the string, set the pointer to the beginning of the string. Using the
Timer control, you can send (that is, print) a character to the Picture
Box at specific time intervals. This causes the message to print
continuously in the Picture Box control.

Example Program
This program shows how to scroll text horizontally in a Picture Box
control.

 1. Create a new project in Visual Basic. Form1 is created by default.
 2. Add a Picture Box control to Form1. Picture1 is created by default.
 3. Add a Timer control to Form1. Timer1 is created by default. Set its
    Interval property to 250.
 4. Add the following code to the Timer1_Event:

Private Sub Timer1_Timer()
    ShowMessage
End Sub

 5. Create a new function called ShowMessage(). Add the following code to
    this function:

Sub ShowMessage()
    Static MsgPtr As Integer
    Static MyText As String
    If Len(MyText) = 0 Then
        MsgPtr = 1
        MyText = "Welcome to Visual Basic programming!"
    End If
    Picture1.Cls
    Picture1.Print Mid$(MyText, MsgPtr); MyText;
    MsgPtr = MsgPtr + 1
    If MsgPtr > Len(MyText) Then
        MsgPtr = 1
    End If
End Sub

Run the example program by pressing F5. The "Welcome to Visual Basic
programming!" message will scroll across the Picture Box control
continuously until you quit the program.