Create A Shaped Form With An Attractive Shadow Effect By Painting Progressive Alpha Blended?
Aug 25, 2009
I'm trying to create a shaped form with an attractive shadow effect by painting progressive alpha blended layers underneath the main visible form area (a background mask color has also been set to allow a shaped form). This is going well, but I have one major problem to resolve - the bottom shadow layer does not appear as the correct transparent shade - it always appears solidly as the background color / transparent mask color for the form.
Why does this bottom shadow layer not show up as transparent, and why is this color being shown when it is set as the transparency key for the form (and so should be invisible anyway)???[URL]..
in the painteventargs of the form, i've got something like this: [Code] i'm getting a very cool gradient effect from red to yellow, but why is that the case? shouldn't the 1x1 portion be totally red? and the remaining pixels be totally yellow?
i'm not trying to paint a 1x1 portion in my form, im trying to know why e.Graphics.DrawImage(bm, 0, 0, 100, 100) doesn't draw a 1x1 red portion on my form through the code provided above. my understanding is that 0,0 specifies the point to draw the image. bm specifies the image actually drawn, which is 1x1 px. and 100,100 specifies the allowed space for the graphics to draw, if this is correct, the first pixel should be red and the remaining 9999 pixels should be yellow but they aren't.
Is there a way to remove the LineShape shadow effect when selecting the lineShape? I tried
Protected Overrides Sub OnPaint(ByVal e As System.Windows.Forms.PaintEventArgs) Dim g As Graphics = e.Graphics g.SmoothingMode = SmoothingMode.AntiAlias Dim oldmode As SmoothingMode = g.SmoothingMode g.DrawLine(_Pen, X1, Y1, X2, Y2) g.SmoothingMode = oldmode End Sub
but finally, this have some back effects on invalidation: when moving (in a panel) the line leave traces - does not invalidate properly.
I have need for a customised form as the main page of my app, what I'm looking for is to create an amoebic shaped form, something like this. I realize that my 'window' will by nature need to be rectangular and that i will need it to have no titlebar and transparent edges, also i will need to have 'regions' on this form that will allow the form to be closed and turned into a standard rectangular form. I have no idea where to begin with doing this but I hope and presume it is possible with vb.net. The image I have used is for illustrative purposes only, i don't plan to do exactly this (my app is a database not a media player for one thing) If having it is a breach of copyright in this context I will remove it.
I found a class online that creates drop shadows, shown below. This works well, even with a resize grip, until I maximise the window. Once I maximise the window or change the window state of another window (eg. Visual Studio), I loose the drop shadow and I cannot get it back.
I am using .net 2008 and working on Winforms. I wanted to know if there was a way to make form or command buttons look a bit attractive. I know there are control suites available which can revamp the entire GUI of an application but I do not want to use those. Infact I don't want any to use a third party dll.The way the buttons/form looks in Windows XP is now a little lame compared to Vista/Windows 7. So is there a way I can get a similar look in Xp.Actually the reason behind all this is I am removing a third party control suit which I am using right now from one of my program. Doing so will make my form & command buttons look like default .net controls. In windows version higher than XP it would still look okay because of the glassy effect & aero but in XP it would not look great. So I wanted a fix for that.
I use a lot of picture box, label, and custom controls, all of which are oddly-shaped, and must overlap. In almost all cases, the backgrounds are not solid colored.I am using transparent .png images for the background images of many of these controls (except labels), and using transparent as the backcolor, creating a custom shaped control. However, when these controls overlap, the one towards the front will not show any controls behind it through the "transparent" background. This is getting annoying, because I cannot use any alternate object arrangements.How do I create true custom-shaped forms?
P.S. Some of my controls have extremely irregular shapes, so using simple line and curve drawing functions is probably not an option.
Someone please explain this to me like you would to a complete idiot.I want to make a shaped form according to an image.The transparency key only works under 16 bit graphics and we all work on 32bit. Then the entire background shows.The clipping is also very un-neat.So how do you shape a form neatly according to an image WITHOUT using transparency key so it will work in all graphic modes?
how I could make a custom form, by setting the FormBorderStyle to None, and making it transpatent without setting the TransparencyKey to a color...
Because when you set the TransparencyKey property to, let's say 121; 121; 121, and it got a button which got the same color on the ForeColor, and then it disapears...
Here's an example of how it looks like when the form is transparent:
I have a custom shaped form with a transparency key of black. With the opacity set to 100%, I do not see the garbage around my custom shaped form As soon as I change the opacity, I see a transparent square(my borderless form) around my form.
How do I make it where my form retains its custom shape, and can have an opacity of less than 100%?
If you want something you've never had, you need to do something you've never done.
I'm currently building an intranet engine for a project I've got on the go at the moment,and I'd like to save myself a little time by generating header images from code where possible, however, I'd like it to match our concept image.What I'd like to achieve is below:My issue is I've not the faintest how to create that from code. I can do the absolute basics but that's about it.I start to fall down when it comes to the gradient background and the drop shadow on the text. I can get away with positioning the text on the larger header image, so if it's not possible to generate the exact gradient I have there, then I have a work around for that, but what I really want to achieve is the text with the font and drop shadow.
Is there a way to turn off all visual updates to a .NET form while I am manipulating it? When my program first loads, for example, I set the tab control to the tab that was last open. The user can see the program switching tabs.
I have looked into SuspendLayout and ResumeLayout, but either I don't understand what they are doing, or I am not using them correctly, because they don't seem to have any effect. Someone told me that there used to be a way to turn off paint events in VB 6. Does this still exist in .NET?
I tried to skin my application and failed. I can get it to work if I don�t have semi transparent pixels on the outside of my form. But I want to use a skin I found on Deviant art that was made for Miranda. It is really nice but and it has a shadow around it. To get it to work in vb.net (I�m using 2005 btw) I have to fill around the main picture and take out the initializing (I think that is what it is called). But then the form�s edges are choppy. How does Miranda allow the shadows but I can�t in vb.net?
I first tried to do it the easy way. I set up some transparent panels with transparent pictureboxes in them and put my corners and middle fills as the backgrounds. I made the form with no border and set the transparent key to transparent. That didn�t work, so I made the form magenta and the transparent key magenta. The outside of the for where the shadow is was drawn on the magenta and the magenta bled through. So I edited the png�s to be magenta all around the form (eliminating the shadows) and it worked, but the corners were choppy.
Then tried some code I found on the net that tried to make a new control as a transparent panel. It was overriding the paint events and drawing to an off screen bitmap. I really didn't understand it and it just showed up as a blank screen. There has to be a way to do this.
I show forms in a SplitContainer Panel, but since the FormBorderStyle is set to none I'd like to apply a drop shadow. The following code works perfect if the form is not inside the panel
Protected Overrides ReadOnly Property CreateParams() As System.Windows.Forms.CreateParams Get
I have problems with transparent form problem is that its too slow example if i click on button where it should just switch another panel control it takes 3-4 seconds because of redrawing [url] so at form load is called redraw() and if i click on a button and panel is switched i again call redraw() form load 6 second switching panels 3-4 seconds
I'm writing a simple paint program in VB 2008 that allows the user to create rectangles using MouseDown event to anchor one corner, MouseMove to stretch (or grow) the rectangle, then MouseUp event to complete the rectangle.The last statement in the MouseDown event is Me.Invalidate() to trigger the form's paint event where all the rectangles are drawn (refreshed).
I have to create a slot machine. i have 3 picture boxes and i need to know how the program can randomly select from the 7 pictures i have but still create a short delay where there is the effect of spinning. my teacher said that it would be easy to assign each picture a number but i didnt get what he means.
how to implement such a thing , i am currently programming a compact framework vb.net this is what i have done and am stuck,what ive learn is very basic and simple i am using a sqlce query to use it to search for any string matching entries in the database and then it will display it something like google search engine.And am using visual studio 2005, what ive done is that i will use the datareader to search for the rows in the database and then i will have to assign them to something that is similar to google search engine a dropdown list of similiar results but am not sure how. What im doing is for the user to search for a particular salesman name and then have a progressive search function to also help the user to complete typing rather than typing the full words
Public Class FinanceSalesManCom Dim connection As New SqlCeConnection("Data Source = My Documentsfinance.sdf") Private Sub txtSalesman_TextChanged(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As
I am currently painting a light blue, partly transparent overlay over owner-drawn objects to indicate certain state. It's OK but I thought that it would be even nicer if I could at some sort of glass effect to further establish the idea that the particular object has "something" overlaid over the top of it.
I thought that some glass streaks, for example, in addition to the blue transparency would lend a nice effect.I've Googled around for GDI+ (and others) algorithms to do simple things painting like this but have come up empty. I prefer .NET but can figure out the painting from pseudo-code on up.
Sorry, shoul've also specified that I need to target WinXP and using .NET version 2.0 - So unable to use WPF or Vista/Win7 goodies.
