[RESOLVED] [2008] Glassy text haze

[dom_stapleton]

Hi, I want to implement a few Glass forms that have transparent backgrounds. But how to I implement this hazey shadow that appears behind text in glassed windows? It enables you to see the text whatever the colour in the background is.

[jmcilhinney]

There could really only be two ways that that could be done. It could be a GDI+ thing, in which case you'd investigate the Graphics class and some online GDI+ tutorials. I've seen at least one that teaches how to add a halo effect to text, although I'm not sure whether that would support transparency. Alternatively it might be a WPF thing, which would require you to read up about WPF and also to create a WPF application in the first place.

[dom_stapleton]

I found this article after someone suggested the DrawThemeTextEx API:

http://www.codeproject.com/KB/vista/...select=1726049

...and it works like a dream!

The example is in C# but it's not hard to translate, or there are plenty of free C# to VB.NET converters on the Internet.

[kleinma]

Dom, you may have this all sorted, but I just wanted to include I remembered reading an MSDN magazine article about this type of stuff, may have some additional information for you.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc163435.aspx

[RobDog888]

You know why they have the "text haze"? Its because when you draw without it the alpha layer doesnt come out as well so the text haze was drawn behind it to help hide the alpha blending smoothing problem. No just kidding but it does provide that ability if they dont want to go the extra mile and draw the text correctly

[dom_stapleton]

Just thought I'd upload the module that enables you to draw the glowing text on a form.

If anyone has any comments or improvements for the code then please let me know.