Design Interfaces and fancy buttons

[Sal]

Hello Folks,

I am moving along quite well in my program's functionality. However, I don't have the asthetic level of success that I so desire. There are some limitations with the available backgrounds, and button styles in VB6.

My question to you is how do I get that really professional look to my interface. I recently saw a program which incorporated a very intuitive form, which allows the user to choose from a wide variety of chapters of study. It had a textured background and textured buttons with cool shapes and lights(color enhanced buttons using - got focus). I guess there must be some custom ocx buttons available elsewhere.

I have a big list of items that I don't want to just put in a simple listbox, I want it to look professional and be intuitive, and be high on the cool factor scale. The list consist of about 25 chapters.

Do you folks have any suggestions or ideas/design concepts.

Thanks a bunch,
Sal

[delker]

http://www.vbaccelerator.com has a nice selection of asthetic enhancement controls. They have an 'Outlook Style Grid' that may be perfect for your listbox.

Getting that professional look just takes a little time looking around for a few controls, and a little creativity.

[ianpaisley]

You know what you should seriously think about? Macromedia Flash. Flash is a program for making buttons, animations etc...but you can embed them into your App as an ocx control. You can do incredibly funky stuff.Email me and I'll send you some samples if you want - buttons, backgrounds,sounds etc...

They have all the functionality of any other control, such as command buttons, labels, whatever.

Download a free demo of Flash Creator from the Macromedia website.

One downside: The user will have to have Flash Player on their computer, but this is available free and most computers have it anyway. Macromedia alo encourage you to give it away free - include it on your CD-ROM, so you can bundle it with your App.

[Sal]

Thanks for the ideas, should be home soon and able to try it.

Sal

[TomGibbons]

Originally posted by ianpaisley

You know what you should seriously think about? Macromedia Flash. Flash is a program for making buttons, animations etc...but you can embed them into your App as an ocx control. You can do incredibly funky stuff.

Does anyone know how to do this??