Changing Color Title Bar

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Hey guys,
I've been looking for a method through which i can change the color of the title bar in my application.
Thanks in advance,
Regards,
Akkywadhwa

Posted 25-Mar-12 20:01pm

Akkywadhwa

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**JF2015** · Accepted Answer · 2012-03-25T20:11:00

Solution 1

The correct approach to a different color of the title bar would be to apply a skin to the whole form. There are several toolkits for .Net that do that for you e.g.
http://www.skincrafter.com/[^]
http://www.devexpress.com/Products/Index/themes.xml[^]

Posted 25-Mar-12 20:11pm

JF2015

Comments

Espen Harlinn 26-Mar-12 18:28pm

5'ed!

Wonde Tadesse 26-Mar-12 18:59pm

5+

ProEnggSoft 26-Mar-12 21:02pm

Good pointers. +5

Espen Harlinn · Accepted Answer · 2012-03-26T12:31:00

Solution 3

Have a llok at:Use the Free USkin Toolkit to Skin your Application[^]

Best regards
Espen Harlinn

Posted 26-Mar-12 12:31pm

Espen Harlinn

Comments

Wonde Tadesse 26-Mar-12 18:59pm

5+. Even though the example is VC++

Espen Harlinn 26-Mar-12 19:03pm

Thanks, the author provides a small example in c# at the end of the article.

Wonde Tadesse 27-Mar-12 19:05pm

Opps my mistake. :)

ProEnggSoft 26-Mar-12 21:00pm

Good pointer. +5

Espen Harlinn 27-Mar-12 5:21am

Thank you :-D

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 26-Mar-12 21:14pm

Interesting; I did not know about skinning non-client part (or did not thing about it). My 5.
--SA

Espen Harlinn 27-Mar-12 5:21am

Thank you Sergey :-D

Abhinav S 26-Mar-12 21:50pm

Correct. 5.

Espen Harlinn 27-Mar-12 5:22am

Thank you Abhinav!

ProEnggSoft · Accepted Answer · 2012-03-26T15:01:00

Solution 4

I think the following Code Project article
Winforms SkinFramework[^]
may also be helpful.

Posted 26-Mar-12 15:01pm

ProEnggSoft

Comments

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 26-Mar-12 21:15pm

Yes, my 5.
--SA

ProEnggSoft 26-Mar-12 21:19pm

Thank you very much.

Abhinav S 26-Mar-12 21:50pm

5!

ProEnggSoft 26-Mar-12 22:37pm

Thank you very much.

Espen Harlinn 27-Mar-12 5:20am

Nice article, 5'ed!

ProEnggSoft 27-Mar-12 5:43am

Thank you very much.

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov · Accepted Answer · 2012-03-25T20:12:00

Solution 2

I would strongly recommend to give up with that. The library System.Windows.Forms does not offer such functionality, so you will need to use some elements of raw Windows API.

The problem is solved handling the Windows message WM_NCPAINT:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd145212%28v=vs.85%29.aspx[^].

Please see this discussion for some sample solution:
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/netfxbcl/thread/eebf03d0-1242-4fef-857c-5b9e1d38b2f2/[^].

Again, I do not recommend this trouble. You would pay by loosing compatibility with non-Windows systems. Did you know that you can run your .NET applications using Forms on many other platforms? You will loose this opportunity. More important, you will potentially loose compatibility with future Microsoft systems using SLR. One of Microsoft directions of development leads out of Windows. The Windows features you want to implement using those dirty tricks (legitimate in native Windows, which is going to go obsolete) will hardly be supported in future. Why bothering about them?

—SA

Posted 25-Mar-12 20:12pm

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov

Comments

Akkywadhwa 26-Mar-12 16:14pm

Could you please explain "WM_PAINT" with a demo project?
Regards,
Akkywadhwa

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 26-Mar-12 18:45pm

This is not "WM_PAINT", this is WMNCPAINT. Please see the second link for a code sample.
Or do you need WM_PAINT as well?
--SA

Espen Harlinn 26-Mar-12 18:30pm

Good points :-D

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 26-Mar-12 18:44pm

Thank you, Espen.
--SA

Wonde Tadesse 26-Mar-12 18:59pm

5+

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 26-Mar-12 20:51pm

Thank you, Wonde.
--SA

Shahin Khorshidnia 26-Mar-12 19:08pm

My +5

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 26-Mar-12 20:51pm

Thank you, Shahin.
--SA

ProEnggSoft 26-Mar-12 21:00pm

Nice info. +5

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 26-Mar-12 21:13pm

Thank you.
--SA

Abhinav S 26-Mar-12 21:50pm

Detailed answer. 5.

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 26-Mar-12 21:55pm

Thank you, Abhinav.
--SA