[RESOLVED] making my app colorful and professional looking

[dicktracy007]

Hi amigos,

So i developed this application in VB6 and it has the default dull looking windows appearance. I wish to make it look colorful and professional too without choosing from the built in color palettes and all. Would someone be kind enough to suggest some really good way(s) to do that?

[RobDog888]

Are you using the themes for when the app is run on XP?
Dont make the mistake of making it "colorful" as most professional apps are designed to be easy on the eyes and complimenting colors.

Yopu could find some GUI colors that you like and modify it to fit your app.

[dicktracy007]

Thanks RobDogg, no i m not using any themes but i do wish to make the controls eg the command buttons etc to have some gradient like appearance, a professional look but also easy on the eyes. Pray suggest sumthin'
And how do i find the GUI colors, please?

[RobDog888]

So you did not code in the ability to turn on XP themes when running on XP? Usually that is a top priority for giving your controls the XP Look.

As per colors you should do a screen shot and a graphics program to "pick" a color and obtain its actual value. This is easier then guessing at what color is being used on an app and trial and error

[paulsoulsby]

If you want to have a totally unique design that isn't anything to do with Windows, your best bet is to use Picture Boxes for everything and not use command buttons and labels. Use Mousedown and MouseUp events to change the picture when it's clicked.

You'll lose a lot of flexibilty by doing it this way (i.e. you will have to render the button name in the graphic, so won't be able to change it in code). Also, Picture Boxes have to be rectangular and don't have transparancy, so you may want to design the entire form in Photoshop and then chop out rectangles for the buttons.

Quite a lot of work really. I'd personally only do it if your project really requires it. The default look of the buttons will make your software look less daunting to new users.

[Hack]

Do a search in our CodeBank on Form Skinning or just Skinning.

You will find some pretty neat examples of how to do this.

[RobDog888]

I'd personally only do it if your project really requires it. The default look of the buttons will make your software look less daunting to new users.
This is a good suggestion as when you make things outside of professional business apps it brings down the perception of your app and non-standardized interfacces take an extra learning curve to learn. Why turn off your users with things like that. You want them to like and actually use your app so making it easy to use and see should be a priority in the design

[lone_REBEL]

Attatched with the post are the screenshots of two of my professional applications that I designed in VB. You can tell by yourself if they are professional looking or not.
In my opinion, there is indeed a professional look with softwares. To me, it means having easy menus, organizing fields in frames, aligning controls so that they all line up.
Making your software "colorful" tends to reduce the professional look from it. All the professional softwares I have used have the same dull gray BG and the same used-to set of controls. Also, mind it, MOSTLY (if not always) hackers tends to make their softwares colorful and flashy.

[RobDog888]

Not bad :) But if you had added XP theme support, like most apps utilize, you could add that little bit of extra without compromising professionalism.

Following Windows as guidelines helps to guarentee the sucessful usage of your app.

[Merri]

I think the main issue with those windows are that you've put the final "OK" buttons in the middle just like all the other settings. The standard Windows logic is to give a free space in the bottom of the window. I bothered to make one different kind of layout for comparison purposes. It isn't any prettier (except for the Vistamizer skin that I'm using in my XP), but it organizes all the settings into one place in the screen so that it is easy to see all the current crypting settings in one go. However, due to using a bit of a custom list design you'd need to spend a bit of more time coding the usability part to make it actually work. Careful attention is also needed for making sure keyboard navigation and usage works "as expected".

And I'm not saying you should do it like this, I'm only giving some food for thought: how can I streamline design so that it is logical and easy to use? Which elements belong together? Which things are important to show, which things aren't as important (to consider placing them out of the main view, in menus, in separate window)?

[AsmIscool]

One thing you also have not told us yet is the nature of your app or the target market. If you design a nice spectrum analyser for the engineering industry then having it bright orange will not impress anybody. We like our toys grey. If on the other hand you are designing a drawing package for graphic designers it may work in your favour.

My take on this has always been that Microsoft has spent a lot of time, effort and money with the best people they can find to create something that appeals to the vast majority. As the others suggest, allow your customers to skin the thing and they will love you for it.

[Lord Orwell]

One thing you also have not told us yet is the nature of your app or the target market.

look at his screen shots

[AsmIscool]

lone_REBEL has provided screenshots but not DickTracy. Unless they are in a different thread.

[Lord Orwell]

lone_REBEL has provided screenshots but not DickTracy. Unless they are in a different thread.
oops

[dilettante]

Enabling styles is quite useful in improving the user experience on later OSs.

Another issue is fonts. The hoary old MS Sans Serif was replaced by Microsoft as the standard dialog font as far back as Windows 2000, when Tahoma came into use. Vista uses the even more humanist Segoe UI now. Tahoma makes a good tradeoff since it was present from Windows 95 forward in a standard installation - or you can change to Segoe UI on he fly if your program sniffs the OS version.

Sticking with Tahoma works well though. Segoe UI isn't legal to redistribute as far as I know, though there are legal ways a user can back-install it into XP and 2000.

You can also modify your VB6 project templates to default to your choice of font instead of changing it every time you add a form, etc.

One more thing, maybe the most important, is control layout as already suggested. My quick attempt needs more work here too, but aligning left and top edges of controls can produce a more orderly apearance.


Skinning isn't something I have much use for. It's amazing how many skinned applications fall apart if one changes themes and color schemes.

[endri12]

I hate vb6 and it's classic controls.

[RobDog888]

@dilettante, are you running a Vista smulated theme on XP as the progressbar is not the green animated glaring one.

[wes4dbt]

I'm moving away from using system colors, Vista system defaults are not exactly the same as XP. Also, I have some clients that change there system colors and this sometimes distroys the affect I was trying to create.

[RobDog888]

But if they change it then you should let them. I would hate to be forced a "theme" on an app that should be changing with my custom theme tweaks.

[Merri]

It is all about who should have the power. Themes/styles is one area where the user should have the power to choose. Using skins or forcing usage of certain colors where system colors would be appropriate is taking that power away, making you decide what is good. This however has it's downfalls, for example, some users are color blind and may prefer using certain colors, despite how odd they may seem to you.

With system colors you have to be careful and select ones that are the opposite of each other. Like one thing you should never do is to use vbWindowBackground together with vbTooltipText. With default color settings this seems to be ok, but what if someone prefers black window background? You end up with fully black unreadable block that is only accessible to blind people using a screen reader! :)

As for skins, I think they should only be used in applications which may have a community and thus people can create and share their own skins with others.

[dicktracy007]

Thanks a lot guys for such a whopping response. Taught me a lot that i really needed to know. m gonna try some. Ciao

[RobDog888]

We are all glad to have helped.

Ps, if you consider this topic done then dont forget to mark your thread Resolved from the Thread Tools menu. ;)

[dilettante]

@dilettante, are you running a Vista smulated theme on XP as the progressbar is not the green animated glaring one.
Good catch!

Actually no, I was on Vista testing that. However I had forgotten and used MSCOMTCL.OCX (Common Controls 6.0) instead of the "styleable" COMCTL32.OCX (Common Controls 5.0)!


Also regarding system colors one might want to review the suggestions in When selecting system colors, match but don't mix (http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2007/12/12/6648399.aspx). It talks about avoiding combining inappropriate colors from the system colors palette.

Of course if users have a messed up theme selected you can't do much. Still, programs aren't supposed to just use whatever random colors they want. If you do that be sure and specify every color explicitly so you don't get any bad surprises.

[dilettante]

And just to beat a dead horse...

The same thing in a clean XP SP2 installation, with and without visual styles enabled on the machine:

[RobDog888]

If you give the user the ability to color then if they select a bad combination then that is their fault. One example of a sickly combination :D

Bad:
http://www.vbforums.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=36756&d=1116687215


Good:
http://www.vbforums.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=33617&d=1106686904

[Lord Orwell]

Bad:
http://www.vbforums.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=36756&d=1116687215



your opinion! But exactly what control would you use to make this side bar in the first place?

[dilettante]

One solution is vbAccelerator Explorer Bar Control (http://www.vbaccelerator.com/home/VB/Code/Controls/Explorer_Bar_Control/article.asp) but it looks a bit dated now in Vista. The Tasks Pane was replaced by a somewhat different Details Pane and Preview Pane in Vista's Explorer.

[RobDog888]

your opinion! But exactly what control would you use to make this side bar in the first place?
I wrote it myself in vb.net 2003 which I am upgrading to 2008/2.0 and for Vista support.

:)

[Lord Orwell]

not sure what the real issues are in the color picking. they are named after all (title active, etc)

[Justin M]

I just use paint and photoshop to make my apps look colorful.
http://www.geocities.com/nitrogenocide2003/mhxavpromo33sm.gif

[RobDog888]

not sure what the real issues are in the color picking. they are named after all (title active, etc)
I think we are talking about user choosen color choices

Thread Moved

[Lord Orwell]

yes but they were also saying "dont pick background active with tooltext for a color" or some such.

[dicktracy007]

Thanks again. The app i've developed is meant for GPs(General Practitioners) for managing their clinical database, inventories and Drug Index. Since, doctors are said to be not too savvy when it comes to computers, (i may be wrong), i've decided to stick to the default color schemes as suggested by my worthy friends earlier. I would like the users to stick to the business at hand first rather than enjoy the aesthetics of my app.
Thank you all very much guys.