Creating a Rich Label

• Download source code - 66.4 Kb

Introduction

I was looking for a control that I could use for different kinds of headings and captions. After creating several separate controls, I decided to create just one control: a control that could be configured to have different colors, different borders, and that would respond on a mouse-action.

Structure

The best way to start doing this is to look for a good base. Instead of creating a control from scratch, I decided to inherit from the existing Windows.Forms.Label. By doing this, I don't have to write any code to draw the text; the base control will handle this for me.

Properties

In addition to the existing properties of the Label control, I created the following properties:

• BackColor1: This is not a new property. It is the existing BackColor property of the Label control I'm inheriting from. I renamed it to BackColor1 because there will follow a second BackColor.
• BackColor2: By using two colors, I can paint the color with a nice gradient.
• BackColorHover1: When entering the control with your mouse, you can choose which color will be used for the first gradient-color. If you don't want any action, use the same color as the BackColor1 property.
• BackcolorHover2: Same as the one above.
• BorderLeft, BorderTop, BorderBottom, BorderRight: The color of the borders of the control. Set the BorderStyle to None to get this effect. I've chosen this BorderStyle so you can still use the Fixed3D and the FixedSingle if you need to.
• Shadow: Setting this to True will draw a small white line on the left and the top side of the control. I need this when I want to create an OutlookBar-like heading. Set to False if you don't like it.
• GradientMode: Choose the gradient you want.
• GradientModeHover: Maybe you want a different gradient when the mouse is on the control.

Methods

There's not a lot of action with this control: when entering or leaving the control with the mouse, it will use a private field IsHovering to store the control's state. The drawing happens in the Paint and the PaintBackGround methods, nothing difficult about this. Take a look at the code and you will find out that it is pretty simple.

Remarks

When creating a ClassLibrary for this type of controls, don't forget to explicitly add a reference to System.Windows.Forms and System.Drawing, they are not included by standard! If you want to add designer-markups, use System.ComponentModel. I have used this class to rename the existing BackColor property to BackColor1, and to get my new properties in the Appearance category in the Property Designer.