How to skin the titlebar

[chrisdouglass]

When you use a ribbon, etc on a standard winform, how can you get the titlebar (control box, min/max/restore buttons, etc) to be skinned using the same theme/palette as the Krypton controls?

[Phil Wright]

Hi

You need to derive your own form from the KryptonForm base class. Then it will have the same custom chrome look and feel. So if you select the default Office 2007 - Blue palette you will get the blue appearance in the titlebar just like Office.

Phil

[chrisdouglass]

hey phil, thanks for the response. i derived from kryptonform and it didn't change the appearance of the titlebar. i'll read more through the docs but the seemingly obvious choices of AllowFormChrome in the kryptonManager instance and within the form's properties were both set to true. thanks for any ideas!

[kelvin]

Hi Chris,

May I answer this question? Here are the easy 123 steps to follow
0.
First, make sure you have installed and imported the Krypton toolkit properly.
1.
Now, you create a normal Form in your project call it Form1.
Then you go to the Designer code Form1.Designer.vb or .cs depending on your choice of language.
2.
You will see something like this at the very beginning:

Code: Select all

<Global.Microsoft.VisualBasic.CompilerServices.DesignerGenerated()> _
Partial Class Form1
    Inherits System.Windows.Forms.Form


Manually change it to this:

Code: Select all

<Global.Microsoft.VisualBasic.CompilerServices.DesignerGenerated()> _
Partial Class Form1
    Inherits ComponentFactory.Krypton.Toolkit.KryptonForm


3.
Now go back to the design view of Form1 by double clicking Form1.vb or .cs
Ta~da~you have the beautiful krypton title bar all at a sudden.

Cheers,
Kelvin

[jkr]

or in c#

Code: Select all

using ComponentFactory.Krypton.Toolkit;
...
public partial class Form1 : KryptonForm

[chrisdouglass]

I did that both in the frm.designer.cs and form.cs files. i included the namespace and then dervied from KryptonForm. I'll try again with a new project. I mucked around with the namespace for my solution at one point and perhaps that's part of the problem, though I can compile and run just fine even with these changes.

[chrisdouglass]

I added the code as mentioned and it still isn't working. I created a test project within a single form and that didn't work either. here's some things i tried:

- created basic winform project, c#
- derive in both cs files from KryptonForm
test = same result
- add the kryptonManager component to form
- change globalpalette in manager properties to proper skin
- ensure form PaletteMode is set to Global
test = same result
- add kryptonPalette component to form
- change skin in palatte instance
- assign palette to form's Palette property
test = same result

no sure what else to try...

[jkr]

- create a project
- add a krypton button (so the assembly is referenced)
- in code view add
using ComponentFactory.Krypton.Toolkit;
- rename "public partial class Form1 : Form" to "public partial class Form1 : KryptonForm"

later edit :
- add a KryptonManager and change the GlobalPaletteMode

the title bar is skinned when the global palette mode is set to one of the 3 office 2007 styles, with the other 2 styles they look like the default windows skin
be sure to have windows themes enabled, because in classic theme the title bar is not skinned

[chrisdouglass]

thanks! i always run with the themes service disabled. after enabling, krypton painted the titlebar as expected.

[DaveThompson]

If you have the (paid-for) source for krypton toolkit, you can hack around and get the skins working in windows classic mode. it's not recommended, though...

[Waescher]

would it be possible to add a property to enable toolbar-skinning on non-themed windows versions? Phil?
In my case, I would appreciate to skin a form running on server systems like windows 2000 oder server 2003.

I know that this feature was disabled deliberately... but ... please ...

[Phil Wright]

Because I cannot get the code to work in all circumstances it is not possible to release it as a feature. Sorry.

[DaveThompson]

I've been playing with themed KryptonForm on unthemed windows xp and 2003 and found that solving the problem with the title bar buttons redrawing at odd times is to add the following code to the KryptonForm WndProc...

Code: Select all

                    case PI.WM_SETCURSOR:
                        processed = OnSetCursor(ref m);
                       break;


You need to add your own method, and associated methods added into the PI class...

Code: Select all

private bool OnSetCursor(ref Message m)
        {
            uint val = PI.GetWindowLong(Handle, -16);
            uint newVal = (val - PI.WS_VISIBLE);
            PI.SetWindowLong(Handle, PI.GWL_STYLE, (int)newVal); // val & PI.WS_VISIBLE);
            try
            {
                DefWndProc(ref m); // base.WndProc(ref m);
            }
            finally
            {
                PI.SetWindowLong(Handle, PI.GWL_STYLE, (int)val);
            }

            return true;
        }


This does seem to fix the drawing issue. I've observed this is how other products seem to have solved the drawing in non-themed mode on XP and 2003.

If someone with the source could have a look and confirm, please...

Dave

[Phil Wright]

Thanks for the info, I will give that a try during the coming week and let you know if it seems to work in all circumstances. Phil

[rito2k]

Hello everybody,

i have been working with the Toolkit through version 2.1.0 to 2.4.1 and never had any problems, apparently.

2 days ago i uninstalled previous version for installing the brand new 2.5.1 version.

Now i can´t get the titlebars of any of my applications skinned like before. Also tried to create a whole new project, simple, with just a standard Form, reference the toolkit dll, include the using statement, derive the form from Krypton Tooolkit and insert a Krypton Manager (set as global) and still no success!!

Have tried everything written in this post, nothing to do... What i have observed, if i re-reference to old 2.4.1 DLL, voilá! There it is...

May I be missing something? Thank you very much.

[Phil Wright]

I tried the WM_SETCURSOR change and it did not work quite as required. The cursor was not correctly set when the mouse was over the client area of the application.

[DaveThompson]

Try the info available here - http://www.vbaccelerator.com/home/VB/Code/Controls/Skins/article.asp - it's where I got the mouse cursor hack from.

On my machine, all the WM_SETCURSOR thing does is just hide the overdraw of the minimize/maximize buttons - but it could be a fluke.

Dave

[Waescher]

... any good news by now ?

[Phil Wright]

This hack does not work for Krypton. Also you need to remember that with Krypton you can turn on and off the custom border rendering and so any solution has to work when you change between approaches.

[valdain]

Any update on adding skinning to non-themed windows (mainly Windows 2003)? I did some code modifications myself, but would always feel better if the control supported it natively.

Joe