FIX: Button Sizing Inconsistent Between Form Designer and Run-Time (223352)

SYMPTOMS

When using the Visual J++ 6.0 Form Designer, the size of the Windows Foundation Classes (WFC) components may not be consistant between design-time and run-time when the font sizes of the development machine and the target/deployment machine are different.

CAUSE

Under certain circumstances, such as creating a child window in the constructor of the parent window, the autoscaling feature of the Form Designer does not work.

RESOLUTION

To work around this problem, only create child windows for a Multiple Document Interface (MDI) application after the parent window has been created. Avoid using fixed-size components, such as bitmaps, when auto-scaling features are desired.

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a bug in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article.

This bug was corrected in Visual Studio 6.0 Service Pack 3. For more information about Visual Studio service packs, please see the following articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

194022 INFO: Visual Studio 6.0 Service Packs, What, Where, Why

194295 HOWTO: Tell That Visual Studio 6.0 Service Packs Are Installed

MORE INFORMATION

This problem might be seen when an MDI application is developed on a machine with a large font setting, and is then deployed or run on a machine with a small font setting, or vice versa. This problem might also be seen when using fixed-size components and auto-scaling at the same time.

Steps to Reproduce Behavior

Develop an MDI application on a machine with a large font setting.
Design both the parent window and the child window using the Visual J++ 6.0 Form Designer.
Include code to create and show an instance of a child window in the constructor of the parent.
Run the resultant application on a machine with a small font setting.

REFERENCES

For support information about Visual J++ and the SDK for Java, visit the following Microsoft Web site:

http://www.microsoft.com/java