Transparent Splash Screen

• Download demo project - 582 KB - VS2005 - C#
• Download demo project - 578 KB - VS2003 - Visual Basic .NET

Introduction

Anyone interested in making a transparent splash screen? Like the one used by Adobe? This one was done by rendering PNG files that use Alpha. Inluded in the download, you will find a full example using Visual Basic .NET 2003. I'm using embedded resources for the image... I have installed and run this project correctly on Windows 98, XP, 2000.

Here are the two most important functions to use inside your splash screen form:

Protected Overrides Sub OnPaint(ByVal e As System.Windows.Forms.PaintEventArgs)
    ' Do nothing here!
End Sub

Protected Overrides Sub OnPaintBackground(
    ByVal pevent As System.Windows.Forms.PaintEventArgs)
    Dim gfx As dra.Graphics = pevent.Graphics
    gfx.DrawImage(IMA.imaSplashScreen, New dra.Rectangle(0, 0, Me.Width, Me.Height))
End Sub

P.S. This is a very easy way to accomplish this, without using API calls and such messy stuff like that. You should be able to make splash screens and About boxes like the one I have used in my project.