[perl-win32-gui-users] ANNOUNCE: Win32::VisualStyles V0.02

[Robert M. <rob...@us...>]

[For some reason this appears not to have reached the list - retrying.]

All,

Back in May there was a discussion on this list about Visual Styles
(aka XP Styles).  Up to now we have been coping with applying style by
copying a manifest file into the perl bin directory.  This is
unsatisfactory for a number of reasons.

(1) It is difficult to make this work when packing executables (usinfg
PAR for example)
(2) It is difficult to test both with and without visual styles -
especially now that Vista may cache the manifest
(3) It is a continual problem with keeping newcomers informed with how
to do this.

I have created a module, Win32::VisualStyles, that allows you do apply
a "V6 Common Control Activation Context" (to use some of the buzz
words) at run-time.  In particular this means that it is easy to pack
an executable - it's just another dependency - and it's easy to test
with and without visual styles simply by adding
"-MWin32::VisualStyles" to the commandline.

V0.02 is currently propagating to CPAN.   The only differences from
V0.01 are to cope better with the build process - there is no internal
difference to the code that runs.

You can download the source from CPAN and build it:
http://search.cpan.org/~robertmay/Win32-VisualStyles-0.01/
or it should be available for 5.8 and 5.10 from ActiveState's new PPM
repository.

Full documentation included with the module, but let me know if you
need any further help.

Regards,
Rob.