skinning....need a lil coding help...

im creating a skinning engine for a project and i need a lil bit of help.....

i thought about using picture boxs but they dont support transparence properly....im going to be loading a set of bitmaps on to the form, which has no borders...im thinking im gonna need to create a custom control which will support transparency properly and do all the events that a picturebox does.....or can i just modify the picturebox somehow....

a lil code pertaining to your suggestions would be awsome.....or just a suggestion would be great.....thanks in advance...

AcE

you mean skins for apps like WinAmp? if so, I THINK you can goto the 'developers' section at winamp.com and they have open-source code for download. I could be wrong.

Don't use picture boxes, they will eventually screw things up. Instead use the OnPaint event and put all your drawing code there

ok....using the onpaint event is fine and dandy....but how will i catch clicks and other events on the form with no controls, other than the form to click....i guess i could keep an eye on the cursor position but that seems like the long way around this problem......what u guyz think?

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Originally posted by theonetrueace
ok....using the onpaint event is fine and dandy....but how will i catch clicks and other events on the form with no controls, other than the form to click....i guess i could keep an eye on the cursor position but that seems like the long way around this problem......what u guyz think?

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dunno if this is a good way but you could define some variables of type Region and define the close button, minimize button, etc's location each in a separate region variable. If you have a variable like that for each button then you can do a hittest by calling Region.IsVisible (mouseX, mouseY)

ok....so i have figured out alot in the last two hours...i have an interesting question....

considering a form's ability to use a region to determine borders...would it be posible to have a region which fades off....making a very nice userinterface....it would use an alpha layering system much like windows xp icons....which would require semi transparency....now whats a great format for this type of transparency...i can think of none better than png...ideas?

AcE