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a case study featuring the development of a fully functional PieChart control.
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controls, Building Custom Controls with Visual C# 2005 will teach you how to create professional, l
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reusable custom controls for your desktop applications in no time.
What you will learn from this book
• Understand the basics of custom controls
• Use GDI+ to draw your own controls
• Implement double buffering to speed up your forms F r o m T e c h n o l o g i e s t o S o l u t i o n s
• Add printing functionality to your custom controls
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• Handle the mouse events to improve the user experience ibeulia
• Offer design-time support for programmers using your control riun S GDI+ Custom Controls
• Design intuitive interfaces for your users Re
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$ 34.99 US Packt Publishing
£ 22.99 UK Birmingham - Mumbai
€ 32.99 EU www.packtpub.com
Prices do not include
local sales tax or VAT Iulian Serban Dragos Brezoi
where applicable
Tiberiu Radu Adam Ward
GDI+ Custom Controls with
Visual C# 2005
A fast-paced example-driven tutorial to building
custom controls using Visual C# 2005 Express Edition
and .NET 2.0
Iulian Serban
Dragos Brezoi
Tiberiu Radu
Adam Ward
BIRMINGHAM - MUMBAI
GDI+ Custom Controls with Visual C# 2005
Copyright © 2006 Packt Publishing
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher,
except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.
Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the
information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty,
either express or implied. Neither the authors, Packt Publishing, nor its dealers or distributors will
be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.
Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all the companies and
products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing
cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.
First published: July 2006
Production Reference: 1220706
Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.
32 Lincoln Road
Olton
Birmingham, B27 6PA, UK.
ISBN 1-904811-60-4
www.packtpub.com
Cover Image by www.visionwt.com
Credits
Authors Development Editor
Iulian Serban Cristian Darie
Dragos Brezoi
Tiberiu Radu Indexer
Adam Ward Niranjan Jahagirdar
Reviewer Proofreader
Cosmin Oprea Chris Smith
Technical Editor Layouts and Illustrations
Mithil Kulkarni Shantanu Zagade
Editorial Manager Cover Designer
Dipali Chittar Shantanu Zagade
About the Authors
Iulian Serban is a software architect who started programming at a very young age. He evolved
through a lot of programming languages including Pascal, Delphi, C++ Builder, Visual C++ with
MFC and finally .NET and C #. By the age of 17 he started working for Syncfusion, one of the
largest .NET control builders in the US, writing code for professional custom controls. Nowadays
he devotes most of his spare time to his own IT business, which is set to release significant software
projects soon.
I'm using this opportunity to thank the Syncfusion team for their continued support, and for their
professionalism.
Dragos Brezoi started programming to create an application for processing and adding extra
effects to his guitar's sound. Several years after, he got a Masters Degree in Computer Science from
the Politehnica University of Bucharest, and is now researching for a Ph.D. in Advanced Automatics.
Dragos currently works as a programmer for Mikon Systems, developing industrial software. His
skills cover a wide area of specialization from PLC and DSP programming to SCADA, OPC, and
DCS solutions. At this moment he is creating professional human-machine interfaces, with a focus
on developing advanced custom controls with C#.
My big thanks go to my son, Matei, who was a wonderful and cooperative baby and let me work
on this book.
Tiberiu Radu has been working with computers for over 10 years now, programming in a wide
range of languages including Pascal, C/C++, Visual Basic, Delphi, and C#. As a Microsoft Student
Partner in the Microsoft Academic Program, he's devoting a lot of time to many .NET-related
technologies. Tiberiu is in the last year of studies with the Automatic Control and Computers Faculty
of the Politehnica University of Bucharest. While researching for his own IT security business, he
developed skills in embedded programming and new web technologies, and is seeking new and
innovating networking security solutions.
Adam Ward works for a communications technology company in Derby, England. Adam excels
in experimental programming techniques and has a particular interest in high-speed algorithms and
graphical methods. His professional work is based in a varied Research and Development environment
and he thrives on tasks requiring innovation, skill, and fine-tuning. He has also been involved in
experimental coding collaborations showcasing the power of C#. Away from work, Adam is
turning his attentions to Linux systems and especially cross-platform programming under
.NET-compatible systems.
About the Reviewer
Cosmin Oprea is a veteran in the software industry, having written code in languages ranging
from C/C++ to VB6 and C#. His experience with GDI started when working with the Win32 API
on Windows 95, and nowadays he's using GDI+ to give a final touch and better look and feel to
his Windows Forms interfaces.
Cosmin is a big fan of agile methodologies (such as Extreme Programming), which he has successfully
applied when developing various enterprise-class applications based on .NET technologies. Microsoft
Romania has recently awarded Cosmin in recognition of his influence as a .NET evangelist, and
for his contribution to the Romanian .NET User Association (RONUA).
Table of Contents
Preface 1
Chapter 1: Introduction to Custom Controls 5
What Are Controls? 5
Introducing Custom Controls 7
Categories of User Controls 9
Preparing Your Environment 9
What Are Custom Controls Made Of? 9
Private Fields 10
Properties 11
Indexers 13
Events and Delegates 14
Handling Events 16
Collections 17
Enums 19
Building TinyNoiseMaker 20
Time for Action—Creating the TinyNoiseMaker Custom Control 20
Extending TinyNoiseMaker 27
Time for Action—Adding Public Functionality 27
Time for Action—Using the Control's Public Interface 31
Summary 33
Chapter 2: Introduction to GDI+ 35
Understanding Control Drawing 35
Understanding GDI+ 36
The Graphics Object 36
The Control.Paint Event 37
Invalidation 37
Simple Drawing on a Form 38
Time for Action—Creating the Application 38
Drawing Inside a Panel Object 41
Time for Action—Creating the Application 41
Table of Contents
Drawing Inside a Control 42
Time for Action—Creating the Application 43
Summary 45
Chapter 3: Basic Drawing 47
The GDI+ Coordinate System 47
Drawing with GDI+ 49
Using the Color Object 49
Drawing Using the Pen Object 50
Filling Surfaces Using the Brush Object 51
Drawing Text Using the Font Object 52
Improving Drawing Quality 53
Building the GradientLabel Control 54
Time for Action—Creating the GradientLabel Custom Control 54
Summary 56
Chapter 4: Drawing Complex Shapes and Using Transformations 57
Drawing Complex Shapes 57
The GraphicsPath Object 58
The Region Object 62
Clipping Drawing Using Region Objects 65
Keeping Drawing Inside a Region 65
Keeping Drawing Outside a Region 66
Graphics Transformations 67
Translation 68
Rotation 69
Scaling 70
Creating the Clock Control 71
Time for Action—Creating the Clock Control 71
Time for Action—Updating the Clock to Use Transformations 77
Summary 78
Chapter 5: Drawing Control Parts, Borders, and Adornments 79
Rendering Common Control Parts 79
Drawing Buttons 80
Drawing Caption Buttons 81
Drawing Checkboxes 82
ii
Table of Contents
Drawing Drop-Down Buttons 83
Drawing Radio Buttons 83
Drawing Scroll Buttons 84
Rendering Borders and Frames 85
Rendering Button Borders 85
Rendering 3D Borders 86
Rendering Control Adornments 87
Creating Multiple Controls that Reuse the Same Functionality 88
Creating a Base Class for Two or More Controls 89
Time for Action—Creating the ControlPart Base Class 89
Creating Derived Controls 91
Time for Action—Creating the ScrollArrowButton Control 91
Time for Action—Creating the CheckButton Control 93
Extending Existing Controls 94
Time for Action—Creating the BorderGradientPanel Control 94
Time for Action—Implementing the GradientButton Control 96
Summary 98
Chapter 6: Working with Images 99
Drawing Images 100
Using the Image Class 100
Using the Bitmap Class 101
Displaying Images 103
Time for Action—Displaying Images 103
Image Effects 105
Skewing, Rotation, and Scaling 107
Building the ImageWarper Class 108
Time for Action—Creating the ImageWarper Class 109
The ImageWarperControl 113
Time for Action—Creating the ImageWarperApp and the Image WarperControl 113
Summary 120
Chapter 7: Printing 121
.NET Printing Explained 121
Using the PrintDocument Class 122
Your First Print Job 123
Time for Action—Creating the "Hello Printer!" Application 123
iii
Table of Contents
The SimpleReportPrinter 126
Building the SimpleReportPrinter and TextDispenser Classes 126
Time for Action—Building the TextDispenser Class 128
Time for Action—Building the SimpleReportPrinter Class 130
User Involvement 134
Our Responsibilities as Programmers 137
Printing Custom Controls 137
Time for Action—Creating the PrintableRichTextBox 138
Summary 141
Chapter 8: Collections 143
Collections in the .NET Framework 144
ArrayList 144
Queue 145
Stack 146
SortedList 148
Generics 150
Building the Font Picker 152
Time for Action—Building Font Picker 152
Summary 163
Chapter 9: Double Buffering 165
Introduction to Double Buffering 165
The Scroll Bar 166
Scroll that Text! 168
Time for Action—Building FlickerFree Control 169
Summary 175
Chapter 10: Handling Mouse Events 177
Handling Mouse Events 178
Working with Coordinates 179
Dragging and Dropping 179
Dragging 180
Time for Action—Dragging 181
Dragging and Dropping 188
Time for Action—Dragging and Dropping 188
Summary 193
iv
