How to create a clock on Title bar of MDI form in WPF

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Hi,
I have to create and display a digital clock in my WPF project over the MDI form's title bar.
Clock should be of same width as of Title bar & should be sticked with it i.e. resized accordingly with form resizing.

Regards,
honeyashu

Posted 15-Dec-14 20:00pm

honeyashu

Updated 15-Dec-14 20:01pm

v2

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Maciej Los 16-Dec-14 2:03am

What have you done? Where are you stuck?
What's the issue?

honeyashu 16-Dec-14 2:22am

I haven't yet done anything. I am a Winform developer and completely novice user to WPF.
Just created a MDI UI with menus & controls and have to display a digital clock on the title bar.

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 16-Dec-14 2:51am

) 1There are no forms in WPF, 2) and no MDI; 3) and MDI is extremely poor design which Microsoft is trying to phase out...
—SA

honeyashu 16-Dec-14 2:54am

Yes I know that & I just used this word to explain that I want to display the clock over MainForm

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 16-Dec-14 3:02am

It's much better not to use wrong terminology. Even if you understand things correctly, wrong terminology use makes it not apparent... In my comment to Solution 1, I advised not to solve this problem, especially for WPF, especially at your level of expertize; it would require disproportional effort for the sake of questionable "quality" of this feature. This is pretty difficult because it required non-client area rendering, which lies well outside of WPF, would require low-level Windows programming...
—SA

Maciej Los 16-Dec-14 3:15am

Solution 1 has been deleted in response to the comments.
Thank you, Sergey ;)

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 16-Dec-14 3:26am

You are very welcome.
—SA

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 16-Dec-14 3:35am

Ah, I got a different idea. OP could use the WPF window without the non-client area, emulating non-client rendering in a client area, including mouse dragging of the window. Then the clock could be easily rendered on this pseudo-non-client "title bar"; then the method you suggested could still be used.

Perhaps, if you find my idea reasonable, you could reproduce your answer in this flavor, referring to my comment. If you do, I could add the answer elaborating the window without non-client are and its simulation.

—SA

Maciej Los 16-Dec-14 3:42am

It's your idea, so feel free to answer ;)

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 16-Dec-14 10:10am

Some one has already done that. :-)
—SA

honeyashu 16-Dec-14 3:49am

I had achieved this in my previous project using a rectangle drawn over the title bar of MDI form , but again that was on win form & using OnNcPaint()

<pre lang="c#">
private void Main_OnNcPaint(ref System.Windows.Forms.Message m)
{
paintTitleBar = m;
IntPtr hdc = GetWindowDC(m.HWnd);
Graphics g = Graphics.FromHdc(hdc);
RectangleF titleBarRectF = g.VisibleClipBounds;
int formWidth = (int)titleBarRectF.Width;
int CaptionHeight = Bounds.Height - ClientRectangle.Height;
Size CloseButtonSize = SystemInformation.CaptionButtonSize;

int X = formWidth - (CloseButtonSize.Width * 4) - 200;
int Y = 4;
int width = 200;
int height = CaptionHeight - 10;
string dateText;
if (PreferencesController.IsShowDateTimeWithSeconds)
dateText = DateTime.Now.ToString("dd MMM yyyy hh:mm:ss tt");
else
dateText = DateTime.Now.ToString("dd MMM yyyy hh:mm tt");
RectangleF timeDisplayRectF = new RectangleF(X, Y, width, height);
g.FillRectangle(new SolidBrush(Color.DarkBlue), timeDisplayRectF);
Font font = new Font(Font.FontFamily, Font.Size + 2, FontStyle.Bold);
g.DrawString(dateText, font, new SolidBrush(Color.White), timeDisplayRectF);
g.Dispose();
ReleaseDC(m.HWnd, hdc);
m.Result = IntPtr.Zero;
}
</pre>

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Jan Bakker · Accepted Answer · 2014-12-16T03:32:00

Create a separate window for the clock.
You can put all the logic in there as well.
use these settings:
WindowStyle="None" ShowInTaskbar="False"

Initialize the clock window in your mainWindow.

Now respond to your mainWindow_SizeChanged and set the position and width of the clock window.

Don't forget to close the clockWindow on MainWindow.Close.

And set the WindowClock.Owner to the MainWindow.

Feel free to ask a question if this is not clear to you.