Form re-paint GDI+

I will be doing if i get stuck with it. Again thanks for the help

The only issue i have now is the speed of the paint on the user control, it is only mildly sped up by double buffering the control. I could replace the paint with a picture box but not sure that will have any improvement on the performance of the control and unsure as to the memory implications as well.

Ah sometimes i wish i didn't embark on these sorts of projects but well, it is the only way to learn.

Forgive me i was being a bit stupid, i was using some weird property from the form, not sure why, again must have been because i was doing this in a hurry to get a quick demo out to someone to show them how skinning a form should be done instead of creating hundreds of picture boxes on a form.

Thanks for your help again and for the idea's.

Great that seems to work fine :). Only one issue is that it is a bit slow, but i am sure i can find a way around that.

Next and last quick question, as this form is designed to be a base object and other forms inherited off it, is there any way of getting the value of the text property from the inherited object?

Cheers

Jinge,

That actually is not a bad idea, i didn't think of that, i can hold all the repainting stuff in the user control, you know that situation where you cannot see the wood for the trees? Yep!

Im going to give that a try and see where it leads me, cheers for that!

I mean i have some code that works:

The loadskin() method only gets run if the boolean LoadedSkin is false and obviously if the form is repainted. When the user hovers over where i have painted the close button, the code detects this, sets the loaded skin to false, a boolean to say that the close button has changed and then invalidate the form. The LoadSkin then sees the close button boolean is true, loads the hover image accordingly and then repaints the entire form.

This does work splendidy but repainting is quite heavy, especially if i am doing the entire form. All the images are already loaded into memory so its not as if it has to get them all out of the skin file again.

My issue is that i need to draw these with custom graphics really. Implementing the actual functions of these buttons is fairly easy, detecting where the mouse was clicked and then checking the coords with where the buttons are is extreemly easy. Its just the re-draw on the mouse states that i am having issues with.

It would be usefull to just re-draw the area where the button is without having to re-draw the whole form. With big forms this could be very counter productive.
As per the Glassbutton link posted before, i know this can be done, but looking through the code, it does seem to re-paint the whole control if im not mistaken?

It is all painted by me. The code of the onpaint is below. Please note that i am still developing this so code is...well not perfect.

protected override void OnPaint(System.Windows.Forms.PaintEventArgs pe)
        {
            if (!DesignMode && Storage.LoadedSkin.currentSkin != null)
            {
                LoadSkin();
                Brush t = new TextureBrush(titleBarGraphic);
                pe.Graphics.FillRectangle(new SolidBrush(Color.FromArgb(27, 27, 27)), new Rectangle(0, 0, this.Width, this.Height));
                pe.Graphics.FillRectangle(new SolidBrush(Storage.LoadedSkin.currentSkin.Form_BackgroundColor), new Rectangle(2, 2, this.Width - 4, this.Height - 4));
                try
                {
                    pe.Graphics.FillRectangle(t, new Rectangle(0, 0, this.Width, Storage.LoadedSkin.currentSkin.Form_TitleBarHeight));
                }
                catch { }
                t = null;
                try
                {
                    pe.Graphics.DrawImage(closeButton, this.Width - 2 - Storage.LoadedSkin.currentSkin.Form_CloseButtonWidth, 1, Storage.LoadedSkin.currentSkin.Form_CloseButtonWidth, Storage.LoadedSkin.currentSkin.Form_CloseButtonHeight);
                    closeButtonLocation.X
                }
                catch { }
                try
                {
                    pe.Graphics.DrawImage(maxButton, this.Width - 2 - (Storage.LoadedSkin.currentSkin.Form_CloseButtonWidth + Storage.LoadedSkin.currentSkin.Form_MaximizeButtonWidth) - 1, 1, Storage.LoadedSkin.currentSkin.Form_MaximizeButtonWidth, Storage.LoadedSkin.currentSkin.Form_MaximizeButtonHeight);
                }
                catch { }
                try
                {
                    pe.Graphics.DrawImage(minButton, this.Width - 2 - (Storage.LoadedSkin.currentSkin.Form_CloseButtonWidth + Storage.LoadedSkin.currentSkin.Form_MaximizeButtonWidth + Storage.LoadedSkin.currentSkin.Form_MinimizeButtonWidth) - 1, 1, Storage.LoadedSkin.currentSkin.Form_MinimizeButtonWidth, Storage.LoadedSkin.currentSkin.Form_MinimizeButtonHeight);
                }
                catch { }
                SizeF textSize = pe.Graphics.MeasureString(formText, DisplayFont);
                Int32 textWidth = (int)textSize.Width + 2;
                StringFormat sFormat = new StringFormat();
                sFormat.LineAlignment = StringAlignment.Center;
                Rectangle wrapTangle = new Rectangle(0, 0, textWidth, Storage.LoadedSkin.currentSkin.Form_TitleBarHeight);
                pe.Graphics.DrawString(formText, DisplayFont, new SolidBrush(Color.White), wrapTangle, sFormat);
               
            }
            else
            {
                pe.Graphics.DrawString("No Skin Loaded", new Font("Arial", 10), Brushes.RoyalBlue, new PointF(30.0F, 50.0F));
            }
        }

As you can see i am painting all the buttons. The form is set to have no border so i can do the form painting myself.

Yea i have seen this button before, must dig deeper into the code. Very well made button, could do with a little more commenting though. But i can see where i need to get the code from.

I am assuming at this point that there is some sort of graphics buffer it draws to and from to ansure that only certain bits are updated.

my be below link can help you :)


http://www.codeproject.com/KB/buttons/glassbutton.aspx