beetlefeet

I'm having some trouble with a usercontrol i made (for a graphical button).
It uses 6 hidden pictureboxes.
3 pictureboxes for the source of graphical states (normal, rollover, clicked) ( controlarray picSrc(0,1,2) )
3 more for temporary pictures. ( picBut(0,1,2) )

at initialize time and usercontrol_resize i resize pictureboxes picBut() to the size of the usercontrol.
Then i fill them using picturebox.paintpicture from picSrc. (I use 3 paintpicture calls for each so i can scale the ends separatly from the middle so the buttons keep nicely pill shaped.)

Heres the code:
The actual variables and maths isn't important, that much works.


' left end
picBut(i).PaintPicture picSrc(i).Picture, 0, 0, butCurve2, ctlHeight, 0, 0, butCurve, butHeight
' middle
picBut(i).PaintPicture picSrc(i).Picture, butCurve2 - 10, 0, ctlWidth - (butCurve2 * 2) + 20, ctlHeight, butCurve, 0, butWidth - (butCurve * 2), butHeight
' right end
picBut(i).PaintPicture picSrc(i).Picture, ctlWidth - butCurve2, 0, butCurve2, ctlHeight, butWidth - butCurve, 0, butCurve, butHeight

at this point I also set the usercontrols maskimage property to one of the picBut()s, to get the transparency right.

"Set UserControl.MaskPicture = picBut(0).Image"

Now whenever i want to actually draw the button i just set the usercontrols image to the relevent picBut() depending on the mouse state etc. (another thing i tried that works the same is using usercontrol.paintpicture)
ie:
"Set UserControl.Picture = picBut(intState).Image" or
"UserControl.PaintPicture picBut(intState).Image, 0, 0"


Sorry if this is confusingly written so far, i'm getting to the point

Now this all works and looks fine.

But...
Looking at the task manager I see that each instance of the usercontrol uses multiple megabytes of memory. (the pictures are only ~ 150x50 pixels and there are only 3 states. The amount of memory used goes up fast with the size of the control. if i resize the control to around 400x200 or so it uses around 60+ megabytes of memory! this is for each instance or a form.

I've tried a few things.
By commenting out the lines about the memory problem goes
away. (but the control doesn't display anything :P )
Commenting them out one by one shows that they all play a part in the missing memory.

I'm not sure what the problem is. I thought the code looked safe and simple. I'm not doing anything tricky with the API or DC's or anything. I just can't figure where those megs of memory are going.

Also, the memory usage for the VBIDE in task manager doesn't go up, only the total system memory used does, and the memory coems straight back after deleting the usercontrol from the form, so it's not like the is memory being lost forever.

If anyone knows what could be causing this it would be a big help.

Chris J Locke

60MB of memory?! You don't mean KB?
Any chance of posting the control? (in a .ZIP or something)

beetlefeet

Unfortunately I do mean 60MB. It's completely strange, i cannot beging to imagine what on earth could be using it all.

I'm at home over the weekend, the code's at work, I'll get back to you regarding posting the control on monday.

thanks

beetlefeet

Heres the VB6 project for the control. (well it's actually just an EXE project which the usercontrol is part of.)

Edit: The file is attached in a post below.

Steps to show the problem:

- Open the project in VB6.
- Show the Form (Form1).
- Open taskmanager and go to the performance tab where it shows used memory.
- Click back to the form.
- Check memory used.
- Draw an AquaButton onto form1.
- Check memory.
- Resize AquaButton.
- Check memory.

My pc is win2k SP2 by the way, i haven't tested it elsewhere.

thanks to anyone who looks at it.

beetlefeet

Heres the Zip.

beetlefeet

Oh the missing OCX is the desaware spyworks hook control. I forgot about that. Its used for capturing the mouse movements so i can do rollever effects.

I'll make a version that doesn't use the hook.

Also I'm going to use that report thread to moderator link to get them to delete this thread and then post the project back at the original thread.

thanks.

ericgamer47

what do you mean performance tab? i searched for task manager and found a program called taskman. so i opened that. and from there on i'm lost.. i dont see anything that says performance..

beetlefeet

Heres the file w/o the reference to the Desaware Hook control.

(sorry about that)

NB i'm not interested in the actual behavior of the button (mouseovers etc) I can get that working fine, just the memory usage.

Hmm In my task manager (right click task bar and choose taskmanager) it has a performance tab which shows the amount of memory and cpu etc used. Might be different for different windows versions, i can't remember. I'm using win2k.

ericgamer47

well thats probably it.. and in that case, i wont be able to help very much... but 60MB! wow! that's a lot...

beetlefeet

I think i've got it sorted out. It 's an odd one and perhaps I should file a bug report about it or something. (i'm pretty sure it's not an error on my part).

here we go:

I had the UserControl's ScaleMode set to pixels.
and was using these lines to convert it to twips:

ctlWidth = UserControl.ScaleX(UserControl.ScaleWidth, vbPixels, vbTwips)
ctlHeight = UserControl.ScaleY(UserControl.ScaleHeight, vbPixels, vbTwips)

If i set the usercontrols scale mode back to twips and leave out the above calculation lines it does not use up that much memory, only a few kilobytes.

I'm guessing somewhere along the line in one of the paintpicture calls or somewhere, it is allocating memory for a DC or something on the usercontrol and accidently using the value for twips (or perhaps himetrics?) but allocating that number of pixels, thus allocating 15^2 times too much memory.

sound plausable?

How bizzare...

Thanks evr1 that took an interest, eric, chris.

shmoove

If you're using Width and Height of the control to set the values then that's probably your answer.