A Cool Vista Sidebar Gadget Style CPUInfo Animate Control! (Fixed)

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Introduction

This article introduces how to make a Vista style cool CPUInfo control with C#. This control can get a percentage of CPU and Memory of the current Windows system.

Background

Microsoft provides a beautiful sidebar in the Vista System, so I want to make the same control with C#. Thanks to GDI+, you can find that it is very easy to do so.

Using the Code

The main class is the VistaCPUInfo class; it is inherited from the Usercontrol class:

//
// Main Class
//
public partial class VistaCPUInfo : UserControl
{
    ...
}

To get the percentage of CPU, use the following code:

if (pc == null) pc = new PerformanceCounter("Processor", "% Processor Time", "_Total");
cpu = (float)pc.NextValue();  //This is the aim value!

To get the percentage of physical memory, use the following code:

//Memory Structure
[StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential)]
public struct MEMORY_INFO
{
    public uint dwLength;
    public uint dwMemoryLoad;
    public uint dwTotalPhys;
    public uint dwAvailPhys;
    public uint dwTotalPageFile;
    public uint dwAvailPageFile;
    public uint dwTotalVirtual;
    public uint dwAvailVirtual;
}
...
MEMORY_INFO MemInfo;
MemInfo = new MEMORY_INFO();
GlobalMemoryStatus(ref  MemInfo);
mem = (float)MemInfo.dwMemoryLoad;    //This is the aim value!

Then, use GDI+ methods to draw the result:

void VistaCPUInfo_Paint(object sender, PaintEventArgs e)
{
    e.Graphics.TextRenderingHint = 
        System.Drawing.Text.TextRenderingHint.ClearTypeGridFit;
    //Background
    e.Graphics.DrawImage
        (Image, (int)positionRect.X, (int)positionRect.Y, 198, 159);
    //Point
    e.Graphics.ResetTransform();
    e.Graphics.TranslateTransform
        (positionRect.X + 68f, positionRect.Y + 82f);
    e.Graphics.RotateTransform(cpuCurAngle);
    e.Graphics.DrawImage(ImageDial, -5, -49, 10, 98);
    e.Graphics.ResetTransform();
    e.Graphics.TranslateTransform
        (positionRect.X + 143f, positionRect.Y + 50f);
    e.Graphics.RotateTransform(memCurAngle);
    e.Graphics.DrawImage(ImageDialSmall, -5, -35, 10, 70);
    e.Graphics.ResetTransform();
    //Cover
    e.Graphics.DrawImage
        (ImageDialDot, (int)positionRect.X, (int)positionRect.Y, 198, 150);
    //Text
    RectangleF rect = new RectangleF((int)positionRect.X + 53, 
                        (int)positionRect.Y + 107, 35, 15);
    e.Graphics.DrawString(((int)percentOfCPU).ToString() + 
                    "%", textFont, textBrush, rect, format);
    rect = new RectangleF((int)positionRect.X + 127, 
                (int)positionRect.Y + 66, 35, 13);
    e.Graphics.DrawString(((int)percentOfMemory).ToString() + 
                    "%", textFont, textBrush, rect, format);
    //GlassEffect
    e.Graphics.DrawImage
        (ImageGlass, (int)positionRect.X, (int)positionRect.Y, 198, 159);
}

Points of Interest

• Developing with GDI+ and C# is an very interesting thing!
• PNG format picture is very good for drawing alpha pics!
• For more code samples, please visit this Web site.

History

• 2008/1/8: First posted on cnpopsoft.com
• 2008/5/9: Modified by Davidwu: disabled the animation in designtime mode. (thanks to Johnny J.!)