Drag and Drop Controls?

I've been wanting to make a program that is like the Microsoft Visual Basic program itself, that lets the user move the controls around on the form, such as moving the buttons, and text boxes. How do I go about starting this? I've read everywhere and can't seem to find anything on it, there's only OLE and copying pictures into a program.

This example shows you how to enable the user to drop and drag items between two list boxes. Add two listboxes to your form, and insert the following code.

Private Sub Form_Load()
' Populate the list
List1.AddItem "James"
List1.AddItem "Frederick"
List1.AddItem "Ann"
List1.AddItem "Paul"
List1.AddItem "Sarah"
List1.OLEDropMode = 1
List2.OLEDropMode = 1
End Sub

' Code managing dropping from list one
' to list two
Private Sub List1_MouseDown(Button As Integer, Shift As Integer, X As Single, Y As Single)
List1.OLEDrag ' Begin dragging
End Sub
Private Sub List1_OLEStartDrag(Data As DataObject, AllowedEffects As Long)
' Only allow moves
AllowedEffects = vbDropEffectMove
' Assign the ListBox selection to the DataObject
Data.SetData List1
End Sub
Private Sub List2_OLEDragDrop(Data As DataObject, Effect As Long, Button As Integer, Shift As Integer, X As Single, Y As Single)
Dim strList As String
' Check the format of the DataObject
If Not Data.GetFormat(vbCFText) Then Exit Sub
' Retrieve the text from the DataObject
strList = Data.GetData(vbCFText)
' If the item was not dropped on itself
If Not strList = List2.Text Then
List2.AddItem strList
'Remove the item from the ListBox
List1.RemoveItem List1.ListIndex
End If
End Sub
''
''
'' Code managing dropping from list one
'' to list two
''
Private Sub List2_MouseDown(Button As Integer, Shift As Integer, X As Single, Y As Single)
List2.OLEDrag ' Begin dragging
End Sub
Private Sub List2_OLEStartDrag(Data As DataObject, AllowedEffects As Long)
' Only allow moves
AllowedEffects = vbDropEffectMove
' Assign the ListBox selection to the DataObject
Data.SetData List2
End Sub
Private Sub List1_OLEDragDrop(Data As DataObject, Effect As Long, Button As Integer, Shift As Integer, X As Single, Y As Single)
Dim strList As String
' Check the format of the DataObject
If Not Data.GetFormat(vbCFText) Then Exit Sub
' Retrieve the text from the DataObject
strList = Data.GetData(vbCFText)
' If the item was not dropped on itself
If Not strList = List1.Text Then
List1.AddItem strList
'Remove the item from the ListBox
List2.RemoveItem List2.ListIndex
End If
End Sub


Hope it is helpful...

Any chance you could amend this reply to include having the list entry's itemdata field transfer with the list entry?

This code rocks!
Thanks!
jody

No reply needed. I figured it out.
I sorta cheated. Before the move event, i have a form-global variable record the itemdata of the list item being moved, and when it is assigned, i just assign the current global itemdata value to it's itemdata field with mystr(i think you called the contents that).

Also, this code rocks enough that you can make it three list boxes
All you have to do is instead of remove the item from one list, do it from both of the ones that aren't the recipient.
Since one is an error, put On Error Resume Next at the top, and you are ROLLIN!

A simple copy/past of list1 to list3 with renaming as needed does the rest.

thanks!
jody