coder000 » user interface http://coder000.com an exploration, a quest... to grow Thu, 03 Sep 2009 17:46:55 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 en hourly 1 Give any shape to your form in vb.net http://coder000.com/give-any-shape-to-your-form-in-vb-net/ http://coder000.com/give-any-shape-to-your-form-in-vb-net/#comments Wed, 02 Sep 2009 07:57:33 +0000 Rahul Vyas http://coder000.com/?p=304 Give any shape to your form in vb.net using any bitmap and making the desired colors transparent.

How does a form look like in VB.NET?

Don’t you feel like changing this shape for some of your applications like:

Doing this was hell of a job in Visual Basic 6. In .net, it is a matter of two lines of code!!

The Code

Private Sub frmMain_Paint(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.Windows.Forms.PaintEventArgs) Handles MyBase.Paint Dim img As Bitmap = Me.BackgroundImage img.MakeTransparent(img.GetPixel(0, 0)) Me.TransparencyKey = img.GetPixel(0, 0) End Sub

For quick understanding, let is go through some points regarding [...]]]> http://coder000.com/give-any-shape-to-your-form-in-vb-net/feed/ 1 Drag or move window from surface in vb.net http://coder000.com/drag-or-move-window-from-surface-in-vb-net/ http://coder000.com/drag-or-move-window-from-surface-in-vb-net/#comments Wed, 02 Sep 2009 05:02:51 +0000 Rahul Vyas http://coder000.com/?p=297 There are applications in which we can move the form from any place on the window (not just the title bar). Here is the tutorial on how can we do this. The code explores – how does Windows Operating System handle a Window (we call it ‘form’ in Visual Basic) & then uses the SendMessage API to achieve the promised task.

First of all, get it clear in your mind that whatever Windows does, it does it through APIs (API: Application Programmer’s Interface). API is a set of functions which are used by all the Windows applications and services. The developers [...]]]> http://coder000.com/drag-or-move-window-from-surface-in-vb-net/feed/ 3 Add bitmap to menu in vb.net http://coder000.com/add-bitmap-to-menu-in-vb-net/ http://coder000.com/add-bitmap-to-menu-in-vb-net/#comments Wed, 02 Sep 2009 04:39:39 +0000 Rahul Vyas http://coder000.com/?p=295 I am sure we all have developed applications with menus. Right? And obviously, we all use the applications with menus. Take Office for example, or our .NET IDE. What is the difference between the menus of these applications and our menus? These applications have bitmaps in their menus. .NET does not have the facility of putting images in menus by design. How can we achieve this?

The first step is to declare the API we are going to use:

Private Declare Sub SetMenuItemBitmaps Lib "user32" (ByVal hMenu As IntPtr, ByVal nPosition As Int32, ByVal wFlags As Int32, ByVal hBitmapUnchecked As IntPtr, ByVal [...]]]> http://coder000.com/add-bitmap-to-menu-in-vb-net/feed/ 1 Fading Visual Effect in VB.Net http://coder000.com/fading-visual-effect-in-vb-net/ http://coder000.com/fading-visual-effect-in-vb-net/#comments Wed, 02 Sep 2009 04:19:10 +0000 Rahul Vyas http://coder000.com/?p=290 In VB.NET, the fading effect on form can be easily programmed using the ‘Opacity’ property of form. In this tutorial we will discuss the use of this property. Looks very basic? Yes, it is. However, it will surely help beginners and moreover, I have used some stuff like Optional parameters and use of threads (simple use of CurrentThread to pause the application) in the code. This might be of some interest to some of our friends.

The Code

Private Sub btnFadeIt_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) _ Handles btnFadeIt.Click FadeOut(Me , 0.001) FadeIn(Me , 0.001) End [...]]]> http://coder000.com/fading-visual-effect-in-vb-net/feed/ 0