How to create movable/resizeable/configurable Toolbars for a Windows Application

Question

I have a large C++ application with a mostly homegrown layer for GUI Abstraction etc. The application is plain C/C++ on Win32 API.

So far the application only supports a static horizontal toolbar which can not be modified in any way at runtime (besides enabling/hoovering visualization). We thought about switching to a ribbon interface but nobody we asked liked that idea.

So we want to add some sort of toolbar with the following capabilities:

• Movable and resizeable (acting as floating windows/palettes)
• Use Bitmaps of any Size
• Supports User configured Toolbars Supports
• Enabling/Disabling/Checked State
• Preferably create disabled/checked/hoovering state bitmaps automatically

How can this be done with the least effort?

I looked at rebars and the TOOLBAR API. Rebars seem not to be resizeable and i was unable to find a working sample for toolbars.

Answer 1

Working sample: here's what I could find: tutorial with link to full example code, part-3 covers toolbars