VB Forum / General / September 2004

You need to write and read your properties.  The framework for this is
already in place.

On your UserControl object, look for the "ReadProperties" and
"WriteProperties" events.  They both use the PropertyBag object which
has all the functionality you need.

To get you started

* * * * * * * *

Public Property Get BackColor() As OLE_COLOR
   BackColor = lBackColor
End Property

Public Property Let BackColor(lData As OLE_COLOR)
   UserControl.BackColor = lData
End Property

Private Sub UserControl_WriteProperties(PropBag As PropertyBag)
   PropBag.WriteProperty "BackColor", lBackColor
End Sub

Private Sub UserControl_ReadProperties(PropBag As PropertyBag)
   lBackColor = PropBag.ReadProperty("BackColor", &H8000000F)
End Sub

* * * * * * * *

If you fire up VB on a new Standard EXE project, add a UserControl and
then fire up the ActiveX Control Interface Wizard (add-in menu) and play
around with that, you'll find that the variables don't need to be Static
at all. They'll be written to and read from the PropertyBag between
runs. That info ends up in the frm file when you save your project.

For example, the Wizard generated all of the code below when I asked it
to add a property named "Test" to my usercontrol. You'll see the
PropertyChanged call as well as the code in Read/Write Properties.
'===============
Option Explicit
'Default Property Values:
Const m_def_Test = "0"
'Property Variables:
Dim m_Test As String

'WARNING! DO NOT REMOVE OR MODIFY THE FOLLOWING COMMENTED LINES!
'MemberInfo=13,0,0,0
Public Property Get Test() As String
   Test = m_Test
End Property

Public Property Let Test(ByVal New_Test As String)
   m_Test = New_Test
   PropertyChanged "Test"
End Property

'Initialize Properties for User Control
Private Sub UserControl_InitProperties()
   m_Test = m_def_Test
End Sub

'Load property values from storage
Private Sub UserControl_ReadProperties(PropBag As PropertyBag)
   m_Test = PropBag.ReadProperty("Test", m_def_Test)
End Sub

'Write property values to storage
Private Sub UserControl_WriteProperties(PropBag As PropertyBag)
   Call PropBag.WriteProperty("Test", m_Test, m_def_Test)
End Sub
'===============