also, I would put each set into a vector collection so that for each collection you can use the iterator to iterate through each one and set the visibility appropriately. Who are all these people and what are they doing in my house?...Me in 30 years, inside a grocery store My articles[^] bdiamond :zzz:

something like teh font dialog in word 2000

Look into the MSDN documentation for the NM_CUSTOMDRAW message. That allows you to manipulate the visual appearance of the tree control without having to resort to full-blown owner-drawn implementations. Michael Dunn has done some nice articles on the subject elsewhere at CG - I suggest you search for them. HTH

I don't want to state the obvious but have you checked it is a Debug Build and not a Release Build? Neville Franks, Author of ED for Windows www.getsoft.com and coming soon: Surfulater www.surfulater.com

You have to enable the transparent background mode for the DC in the WM_CTLCOLOR method BEFORE returning the new brush: HBRUSH CSampleDlg::OnCtlColor(CDC* pDC, CWnd* pWnd, UINT nCtlColor) { HBRUSH hbr = CDialog::OnCtlColor(pDC, pWnd, nCtlColor);   // TODO: Change any attributes of the DC here   // !!! Set background transparent !!! pDC->SetBkMode(TRANSPARENT); // <<<<<<<<< Items will be transparent, showing the new bk brush   if (pWnd->GetDlgCtrlID() == IDC_MYLISTBOX) { if(m_bGrayed) return (HBRUSH)GetStockObject(GRAY_BRUSH); else return (HBRUSH)GetStockObject(WHITE_BRUSH); }   // TODO: Return a different brush if the default is not desired return hbr; } Regards, mYkel

As another poster said you can use the OnCtlColor() method for this. Assuming you have a button for changing between the grayed and not grayed state like this: void CListBoxGrayingTestDlg::OnButtonGray() { // TODO: Add your control notification handler code here if(m\_bGrayed) { m\_bGrayed = FALSE; m\_MyListBox.EnableWindow(TRUE); } else { m\_bGrayed = TRUE; m\_MyListBox.EnableWindow(FALSE); } } Adding a message handler for WM_CTLCOLOR you can now do something like this: HBRUSH CListBoxGrayingTestDlg::OnCtlColor(CDC* pDC, CWnd* pWnd, UINT nCtlColor) { HBRUSH hbr = CDialog::OnCtlColor(pDC, pWnd, nCtlColor);   // TODO: Change any attributes of the DC here   // Set background transparent pDC->SetBkMode(TRANSPARENT);   if (pWnd->GetDlgCtrlID() == IDC_MYLISTBOX) { if(m_bGrayed) return (HBRUSH)GetStockObject(GRAY_BRUSH); else return (HBRUSH)GetStockObject(WHITE_BRUSH); }   // TODO: Return a different brush if the default is not desired return hbr; } Now the background will be grayed, when the control is disabled... ;) Regards, mYkel