Question about designed forms

[rahavtom]

Hello all!

 

Does anyone know how to create a designed form in Visual Basic .NET like Nero, Winamp, CloneDVD GUIs ? (rounded styled screens and so...)

 

Thanks!

Tom.

[Nate Bross]

I don't really know how they do it. It is entierly possible there is a better solution than the one I am sugesting here, but I have seen it done this way before.

 

Remove the borders of the form, and draw your own bitmaps on the form and use transparent labels, or such for the OnClick event, etc.

 

For example, if you want a button that says "Click Me" and you would like it to have a nice graphical look and feel. use the Graphics namespace and draw your own bitmap/jpg/etc onto an x,y location on the form. And put a label at the same x,y and use the labels events like a command button.

[snarfblam]

First off, I recommend reading the MSDN article on this.

 

If you want nice rollover effects, this is a quick and easy method I use, but it might not be so easy for a beginner: I create three different images for any skinned form I make. Each version contains all the graphics for the entire form, including any buttons, with one image for the normal state, one for rollover state, and one for pressed state. I made a custom control that paints itself with the proper region of the proper image (the image to use is based on mouse events and the region is obtained from the .Bounds property). It is a quick and easy way to create a decent skin in a relatively small amount of time.