BusyBar control

• Download source and demo - 60 Kb

Introduction

A busy dialog often shows the standard (boring) wait cursor. To give applications a different feel, I created a few controls called BusyBars.

Classes in this assembly

The assembly contains 3 classes:

• ColorFadeBusyBar
• ImageFadeBusyBar
• BlockFadeBusyBar

ColorFadeBusyBar class

The ColorFadeBusyBar class provides a color slide bar running from left to right. The start and end color of the bar can be set:

For best results, set the Color2 property to the same color as the control background color (Default):

ImageFadeBusyBar class

Instead a color slided bar, the ImageFadeBusyBar control displays an image:

BlockFadeBusyBar class

The BlockFadeBusyBar control goes a total different way. It displays a few blocks and one block is drawn in another color. It is also moving from the left to the right:

Optionally the random mode can be activated.

Something similar for unmanaged code can be found here.

Using the code

Using the control is very easy. Simply add a reference to your .net project, add it to your tool box and then drag it to your form. All necessary properties can be changed through the visual studio property window. Download the whole solution which includes the source code and the demo application shown on the screenshots below.

Feedback

Send me feedback if you have some additional ideas.

History

May, 19. 2004 -- Version 1.0

• Initial Creation

Jun, 07. 2004 -- Version 1.1

• Reduced flickering. Thx to MCHANNER for the code
• Added status text feature. Thx to norm.net for the idea