Need GUI help WM5

I am not a very experienced programmer. I only wrote this program to work with our demo car. It works fine for "demo" world, but is far from production quality. Some of the people in the office want to see it dressed up a bit (viually), but I am clueless as to how to program "neat" graphics. How can I make the buttons more aesthetically pleasing? Do they use flash or something? Are there any examples availble? This is a pic of the program in current form. The black box covers our company logo for privacy reasons.

http://www.berkobin.net/images/08%20WK%20WMA-black.JPG

There are programmers and there are designers. Often these are not the same person because they have different talent focuses. I suggest getting input from a designer.

Having said that - as a developer, you can do a bit such as make your buttens a bit more rounded, add hover-over affects, add some color, etc. Based on what it appears you are doing, I'd suggest creating a form and buttons that look like a car remote.... but then, I'm not a designer :)

Brad!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by brad jones

There are programmers and there are designers. Often these are not the same person because they have different talent focuses. I suggest getting input from a designer.

Having said that - as a developer, you can do a bit such as make your buttens a bit more rounded, add hover-over affects, add some color, etc. Based on what it appears you are doing, I'd suggest creating a form and buttons that look like a car remote.... but then, I'm not a designer :)

Brad!

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I'm not bad at designing either and that is basically what I would do, but I dont even know how to make a button that isnt a square or can I make an image a button?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by aberk

I'm not bad at designing either and that is basically what I would do, but I dont even know how to make a button that isnt a square or can I make an image a button?

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I'm not sure of the functionality available with the mobile framework. Some buttons will allow you to put an image on them. Alternatively, if you capture the "on click" event on an image, then you can treat an image like a button.... :) Again, however, I don't know what is available on mobile. This is true for web/desktop apps.

I took 10 minutes during a phone meeting and messed with a mobile device app. You can create an image and capture the click event easily in a mobile applicaton. I did the following in that 10 minutes (Note I don't design, but only hack in Paint :D ). The two lower items are images that could be anything you can have drawn.



Form1.designer.cs

vb.net Code:

namespace TestForSiteMobile
{
    partial class Form1
    {
        /// <summary>
        /// Required designer variable.
        /// </summary>
        private System.ComponentModel.IContainer components = null;
        private System.Windows.Forms.MainMenu mainMenu1;
 
        /// <summary>
        /// Clean up any resources being used.
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="disposing">true if managed resources should be disposed; otherwise, false.</param>
        protected override void Dispose(bool disposing)
        {
            if (disposing && (components != null))
            {
                components.Dispose();
            }
            base.Dispose(disposing);
        }
 
        #region Windows Form Designer generated code
 
        /// <summary>
        /// Required method for Designer support - do not modify
        /// the contents of this method with the code editor.
        /// </summary>
        private void InitializeComponent()
        {
            System.ComponentModel.ComponentResourceManager resources = new System.ComponentModel.ComponentResourceManager(typeof(Form1));
            this.mainMenu1 = new System.Windows.Forms.MainMenu();
            this.btnConnect = new System.Windows.Forms.Button();
            this.btnUnlock = new System.Windows.Forms.Button();
            this.pboxlock = new System.Windows.Forms.PictureBox();
            this.label1 = new System.Windows.Forms.Label();
            this.pboxUnlock = new System.Windows.Forms.PictureBox();
            this.SuspendLayout();
            // 
            // btnConnect
            // 
            this.btnConnect.Location = new System.Drawing.Point(59, 17);
            this.btnConnect.Name = "btnConnect";
            this.btnConnect.Size = new System.Drawing.Size(117, 37);
            this.btnConnect.TabIndex = 0;
            this.btnConnect.Text = "Connect";
            // 
            // btnUnlock
            // 
            this.btnUnlock.Location = new System.Drawing.Point(59, 60);
            this.btnUnlock.Name = "btnUnlock";
            this.btnUnlock.Size = new System.Drawing.Size(117, 37);
            this.btnUnlock.TabIndex = 1;
            this.btnUnlock.Text = "Unlock";
            // 
            // pboxlock
            // 
            this.pboxlock.Image = ((System.Drawing.Image)(resources.GetObject("pboxlock.Image")));
            this.pboxlock.Location = new System.Drawing.Point(37, 103);
            this.pboxlock.Name = "pboxlock";
            this.pboxlock.Size = new System.Drawing.Size(173, 63);
            this.pboxlock.Click += new System.EventHandler(this.pboxlock_Click);
            // 
            // label1
            // 
            this.label1.Location = new System.Drawing.Point(37, 248);
            this.label1.Name = "label1";
            this.label1.Size = new System.Drawing.Size(187, 20);
            this.label1.Text = "label1";
            // 
            // pboxUnlock
            // 
            this.pboxUnlock.Image = ((System.Drawing.Image)(resources.GetObject("pboxUnlock.Image")));
            this.pboxUnlock.Location = new System.Drawing.Point(37, 172);
            this.pboxUnlock.Name = "pboxUnlock";
            this.pboxUnlock.Size = new System.Drawing.Size(173, 68);
            this.pboxUnlock.Click += new System.EventHandler(this.pboxUnlock_Click_1);
            // 
            // Form1
            // 
            this.AutoScaleDimensions = new System.Drawing.SizeF(96F, 96F);
            this.AutoScaleMode = System.Windows.Forms.AutoScaleMode.Dpi;
            this.AutoScroll = true;
            this.ClientSize = new System.Drawing.Size(240, 268);
            this.Controls.Add(this.pboxUnlock);
            this.Controls.Add(this.label1);
            this.Controls.Add(this.pboxlock);
            this.Controls.Add(this.btnUnlock);
            this.Controls.Add(this.btnConnect);
            this.Menu = this.mainMenu1;
            this.Name = "Form1";
            this.Text = "Form1";
            this.ResumeLayout(false);
 
        }
 
        #endregion
 
        private System.Windows.Forms.Button btnConnect;
        private System.Windows.Forms.Button btnUnlock;
        private System.Windows.Forms.PictureBox pboxlock;
        private System.Windows.Forms.Label label1;
        private System.Windows.Forms.PictureBox pboxUnlock;
    }
}

Form1.cs

vb.net Code:

using System;
using System.Linq;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Data;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Text;
using System.Windows.Forms;
 
namespace TestForSiteMobile
{
    public partial class Form1 : Form
    {
        public Form1()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
        }
 
        private void pboxlock_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            label1.Text = "locked";
        }
 
        private void pboxUnlock_Click_1(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            label1.Text = "unlocked";
        }
    }
}

Thanks!!!