Again, simply because of aesthetics. It isn't animated (which is, IMHO, the best way to represented progress), and it only *implies* how much is left to be done. This is, I think, perfectly acceptable for developers and other techies, because we're accustomed to thinking in such terms, but it's unnecessarily demanding of the average user.

Scott

>>Craig...
>>
>> Thanks for your response.
>>
>> I know it violates the guidelines, but there are a number of those guidelines (such as MDI) that make applications *much* harder to use than a user-centric application should be. I follow those guidelines where they assist the user, but I'm happily agnostic about them when they get in the way.
>>
>> I can't just use a timer, unfortunately. I'm attempting to create, in essence, an animated thermometer bar using shapes (circles, specifically) to represent the landmarks in the therm's process. So, this thermbar will:
>>
>>1) begin with 10 (or 20 or whatever) small red circles
>>2) fill items with green as that step is completed
>>3) show the current step as a flashing yellow
>>
>> Since this thermbar will only be updated periodically, I can't spare the clock cycles to update it twice every second or so. This is why I'm looking for a property that can be set or manipulated to emulate blinking.
>>
>> Worst case, I'll make the current step a static yellow, but a blinking yellow would be much more dynamic and meaningful: it would clearly indicate that the system is doing something, not, as Alan Cooper says, "going stupid". :)
>>
>>Scott
>>
>
>
>Is there a reason you can't use the standard ActiveX thermometer bar?