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First Posted 12 Apr 2006
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Iconits

By | 12 Apr 2006 | Article
An icon control that zooms and fades-in when your mouse hovers over it, which creates interesting visual effects if your application uses icons instead of buttons.

Sample Image

Introduction

For an application that uses icons instead of buttons, perhaps there might be a need to add some fancy effects rather than only showing a rising icon (when hovering). This control gives you an interesting visual effect, which makes an icon to zoom when the mouse hovers over it. Also, there is a Blur property that will cause the icon to be rendered transparent (without a single line of code!); of course, you may turn it off.

Usage

You can start using this control by following these two simple steps:

  1. Add the control to the toolbox (if you don't know how to do it, right click on the Toolbox, choose Add/Remove items, find Iconits.dll, and press OK).
  2. Now that you have seen the control on the toolbox (Iconits), you can start using it. However, these properties are essential:
    Property name Type Description
    Blur Boolean Set to true if you want the transparency effect, set to false otherwise.
    Icon Bitmap Set the icon from any available image.
    IconSize Size Icon initial size.
    Size Size Icon actual size when mouse hovers over it.
    TooltipText String Icon's tooltip text which pops up when the mouse hovers over it for some seconds.

Alpha class

The trick on how the image becomes slightly transparent is done by creating three additional bitmaps instead of the original image. These additional bitmaps, with different opacity (0.25, 0.5, 0.75), will make the effect of the icon slightly fading.

The idea of generating bitmaps instead of direct rendering is, of course, speed. Another reason is, only three images are necessary and that is not too much. So, we develop a class which generates a new bitmap with a different opacity level from the available image:

public static Bitmap returnAlpha(Bitmap bmp, int alpha)
{
    Color col; 
    Bitmap bmp2=new Bitmap(bmp);
    
    for (int i=0;i<bmp.Width;i++)
          for (int j=0;j<bmp.Height;j++) 
          {
            col=bmp.GetPixel(i,j); 
            if (col.A>0)
                bmp2.SetPixel(i,j,Color.FromArgb(min(
                       col.A-alpha),col.R,col.G,col.B)); 
          } 
      return bmp2;
}

It simply iterates through the image and redraws the image with a new transparency level, and, of course, you don't need to redraw the pixel which is already transparent (Alpha=0).

Optimization Issues

Optimization is a critical issue when you develop such controls that employ heavy computations. In this case, the problems are speed and image flickering since GDI+'s DrawImage is used. Double buffering is implemented so that the animation will displayed smoothly. Another issue, slow speed, only occurs if you do a direct rendering of the transparent image. We build additional bitmaps for this reason, which causes another drawback, the use of additional memory.

History

  • v0.1 (9 April 2006): Initial release.

    Implemented alpha transparency, and zoom on mouse-hover.

License

This article has no explicit license attached to it but may contain usage terms in the article text or the download files themselves. If in doubt please contact the author via the discussion board below.

A list of licenses authors might use can be found here

About the Author

hanifku

Web Developer

Indonesia Indonesia

Member

Yojana Hanif was love to code, he is just graduated from Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember Surabaya Indonesia.

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Comments and Discussions

 
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Generalprofblem if transparent Pinmemberjinfrics18:51 23 Sep '09  
Generalvery good job [modified] PinmemberiowhfojfljLEJFSFLJafa23:45 11 Sep '07  
GeneralFurther simplification Pinmemberblackholeat17:50 17 Jan '07  
GeneralRe: Further simplification Pinmembersly59615:18 23 Apr '07  
QuestionWhat kind of icon does one want to import Pinmembergordingin4:02 19 Nov '06  
GeneralResource Question Pinmembergordingin3:52 19 Nov '06  
Generalso cool Pinmemberamin keshani1:05 12 Oct '06  
General[LONG] Big update with everybody contributions PinmemberLelhu7:05 18 Sep '06  
GeneralRe: [LONG] Big update with everybody contributions Pinmemberfemme10:42 8 Mar '07  
QuestionMemory Problem fixed? PinmemberK3210:31 18 Aug '06  
QuestionRe: Memory Problem fixed? Pinmemberswtechno4:23 18 Aug '06  
GeneralExcellent!! But maybe an addition.... PinmemberK32120:30 17 Aug '06  
GeneralBug + Fix: Iconit after visibility change PinmemberKel_22:37 24 Jul '06  
GeneralBug + Fix: BackColor problem PinmemberPink Floyd12:07 10 May '06  
Hi,
First, this simple control is really nice.
 
Ok, if you change the BackColor of a Iconit to, let's say, Transparent, because you want it to appear with its parent backcolor, when you move the mouse in and out the control, all of the bitmaps displayed during the process remain on screen. If you minimize the window or switch to another and back, the display is ok again.
 
I fixed this with a simple change in this line:
 
private void draw(int state)
{
...
// OLD LINE: g2.Clear(this.BackColor);
g2.Clear(((this.Parent == null) || (this.BackColor != Color.Transparent)) ? this.BackColor : this.Parent.BackColor);
...
}
 
This way, if you want your Iconit to inherit its parent backcolor just set the Iconit's backcolor to Transparent. You won't have to change backcolor for every Iconit if you decide to change your container backcolor (e.g. a Form). In case you need your Iconit with a different backcolor than the container's, well, just set the backcolor for your iconit.
 
Have a nice day.

GeneralA question PinmemberMengChih23:20 24 Apr '06  
AnswerRe: A question PinmemberPink Floyd12:08 10 May '06  
GeneralRe: A question PinmemberMengChih23:08 14 May '06  
Generalvery creative work ! PinmemberBillWoodruff15:25 24 Apr '06  
Generaltooltip behavior Pinmemberagarcian7:25 21 Apr '06  
GeneralRe: tooltip behavior Pinmemberjayoscar20:48 23 Apr '06  
GeneralRe: tooltip behavior PinmemberPink Floyd4:04 11 May '06  
GeneralA more efficient alpha routeen... PinmemberJon Rista17:21 20 Apr '06  
GeneralRe: A more efficient alpha routeen... PinmemberJon Rista17:38 20 Apr '06  
GeneralRe: A more efficient alpha routeen... Pinmemberjayoscar0:30 21 Apr '06  
GeneralRe: A more efficient alpha routeen... PinmemberJon Rista12:06 22 Apr '06  

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