How do I get VB6sp5 to display scrollbars on Textboxes (etc)
only when needed? If I switch them on they're on whether needed
or not. Is there a simple way to detect that the text is no longer fitting
the box, and swtich them on as needed myself?

Hmmm.

Use a rich textbox.
The normal one doesn't support this capability (not that I know)

Regards,
Akai

Hi,
I've never really used RTBoxes as I always wondered if there's an overhead
with speed etc (Not that it should really be a problem.) I played with one the other
day and found it a PITA getting colour information loaded etc. I will have another
look again and see the results. Thanks for your info.

Robert

Option Explicit

Private Const SB_VERT = 1
Private Const SB_BOTH = 3
Private Const SB_HORZ = 0

Private Declare Function ShowScrollBar _
        Lib "user32" _
        (ByVal hwnd As Long, _
         ByVal wBar As Long, _
         ByVal bShow As Long) As Long

Private Sub Command1_Click()
    Static Flag As Boolean, Q&

    Q = 0
    Flag = Not Flag
    If Flag Then Q = 1

    Call ShowScrollBar(Text1.hwnd, SB_BOTH, Q)
End Sub

I hadn't realised, or really looked into, the scrollbars only being read
only at runtime. I thought I would just be able to just switch them on
so thanks for that information. Also found it in the APIGuide on looking.

I still see no way of detecting the need for scrollbars other than to
estimate/measure the lines used in code, but that would be a pain if
the box size was changed.

As another poster mentioned, I will look into using an RTB as they seem
to support this type of operation.