Need to program non-rect dialog

Stuart van Weele

I think I remember a MSDN white paper about creating non-traditional user interfaces such as that. The article would be from the mid to late 1990's. I would also think about using a hosting web page that looks like the dialog you want in a CHtmlView window, then hiding the dialog border, etc. Lots of work though.

Judah Gabriel Himango

One of the guys we interviewed showed off a 100% managed C# FTP app that used non-rectagular forms. It's actually fairly straighforward, check out this link.

Any remotely useful information on my blog will be removed immediately.

There are 10 kinds of people in the world. Those who have heard of the ubiquitous, overused, worn-out-like-an-old-shoe binary "joke" and those who haven't. Judah Himango

Brit

I do something similar with an (C++,MFC) application that I'm writing. There are some articles on CP about doing this. Before I say anymore (since my knowledge is about creating non-rectangular dialogs and mimicing the title-bar using C++, MFC), what language are you planning to use? ----------------------------------------------------- Empires Of Steel[^]

Tom Archer

I would prefer VC++/MFC, but would accept MC++ or C#. The main thing is that the ability to draw that logo and the system buttons so that it looks like there's a titlebar with a logo "draped" across it instead of everything having been drawn on the client area. Cheers, Tom Archer - Archer Consulting Group Programmer Trainer and Mentor and Project Management Consultant

Tom Archer

Spy++ tells me these windows have names like TPanel and TVirtualStringTree. Therefore, it's a Delphi app. I guess those guys get all kinds of cool ui things we Microsoft-tool programmers can only dream of. :sigh: Cheers, Tom Archer - Archer Consulting Group Programmer Trainer and Mentor and Project Management Consultant

Tom Archer

Thanks Judah. Cheers, Tom Archer - Archer Consulting Group Programmer Trainer and Mentor and Project Management Consultant

Jeremy Falcon

SetWindowRgn() API and the WM_NCLBUTTONDOWN message with HTCAPTION to help with the phony titlebar. BTW, shouldn't this be in the programming forums? :P Jeremy Falcon

Tom Archer

I don't think so because I was asking for articles and products; not code. Cheers, Tom Archer - Archer Consulting Group Programmer Trainer and Mentor and Project Management Consultant

Tom Archer

I see what they're doing now. Those Delphi objects I mentioned simply overlay an image that's been bit-blitted the dialog's client area. I was thinking it was something much more difficult and extravagent where I needed a 3rd party product of some sort. Cheers, Tom Archer - Archer Consulting Group Programmer Trainer and Mentor and Project Management Consultant

andy_net

This might be something along the lines of what you are looking for. It is in .net http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dv_vstechart/html/vbtchShapedWindowsFormsControlsInVisualStudioNET.asp[^] andy

Shog9 0

This might be useful to you. As might this. Of course, if you don't need the rounded corners, you can just create a window with no title bar and draw one on yourself, sending the proper messages when the mouse is clicked.

Shog9

I'm not the Jack of Diamonds... I'm not the six of spades. I don't know what you thought; I'm not your astronaut...

Brit

If I remember correctly, I turned off the title bar somehow (sorry, don't have the code with me right now). I created a fake title bar. This article[^] (from Nish) shows you how to make the fake titlebar into a draggable area (like the real ones). As Jeremy mentioned, you can use SetWindowRgn to make the rounded corners (that's what I do in my app). It also shows how to make a dialog that has no titlebar. Here's an example of doing that: http://www.codeproject.com/dialog/SimpleIrregular.asp[^] Here's an article that talks a little about skinning (I don't think I used any information from the article, but you might find it more useful). http://www.codeproject.com/dialog/ezskin.asp[^] ----------------------------------------------------- Empires Of Steel[^]

Jorgen Sigvardsson

It's not necessarily a Delphi-app. I remember Borland's OWL using the T-prefix as well. If my memory serves me right, almost everything Borland were prefixed with T :) -- Komm tu mir langsam weh, leg mir die Ketten an und zieh die Knoten fest, damit ich lachen kann I blog too now[^]

Jeremy Falcon

But you also mentioned an article would suffice -- which has code (whether downloadable or not). And thus, indirectly you were asking for code to as one possible solution to your question. Jeremy Falcon

Tom Archer

I remember the days well. Many of us through the 'T' stood for Turbo as in "Turbo Pascal" and "Turbo C/C++". However, Khan finally told everyone that it was for Type (as opposed to MS using C for class) I think though that the classes I mentioned are Delphi-specific. Cheers, Tom Archer - Archer Consulting Group Programmer Trainer and Mentor and Project Management Consultant