Own Drawn Forms

1 Apr 2006 11:27 AM

mayanc

Hi,

I would like to write a skinable form but I really don't know where to
start from.
Which function should I override in order to draw the form by myslef?
How do I draw each Windows element (borders, Title, Max. box etc.)
separately?

Do you know of a tutorial for doing this?

Thanks,
Mayan

1 Apr 2006 4:56 PM

Rob Perkins

mayanc wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I would like to write a skinable form but I really don't know where to
> start from.
> Which function should I override in order to draw the form by myslef?
> How do I draw each Windows element (borders, Title, Max. box etc.)
> separately?
>
> Do you know of a tutorial for doing this?

I could be wrong about this, having only ever drawn in the client area,
but I think you can accomplish it without trickery using the GDI+ calls
supplied by the framework. A decent book on Windows Forms ought to guide
the way; I saw some pretty impressive demos as far back as Oct 2001
showing what was possible.

Sorry I can't be more helpful than that, though.

Rob

1 Apr 2006 5:13 PM

Kris

Check out Region and TransparencyKey

Some tutorials:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dv_vstechart/html/vbtchshapedwindowsformscontrolsinvisualstudionet.asp
http://www.code-magazine.com/Article.aspx?quickid=0301061

1 Apr 2006 5:49 PM

mayanc

Thank you Rob & Kris, but I need something else.

I want to be able to change the form's skin.

I know the articles you pointed me to, but I don't want my form to be
in fixed size. I also got into a problem / bug with the TransparencyKey
on 32bit color depth screens (found a way to get over it, but not good
enough).

Thanks anyway,
Mayan