Cute Splash Windows and About Boxes using .NET

• Download source files for Visual Studio 2003 - 24 Kb
• Download demo project - 15 Kb

Introduction

Every well designed commercial windows application needs a good splash window to display the name of the application, company details, copy right notice and other contact information. The same window can be displayed as an About box.

Details

The images below show the CuteSplash example in action. The main window in the example is only a dummy window with no functionality and is used only to show how the Splash Window works.

Opacity and TransparencyKey properties of a Form are used to build the SplashWindow class. When building the form it is important that the background of the image or the Form should be set to the color used to set the TransparencyKey to make parts of form invisible ! Also set the FormBorderStyle property to None.

A thread is kicked off on Load event of SplashWindow to make this class independent and reusable. A Close button is added to the form to kill the window. The Click event on the button will just flag the thread to exit. Instead of suspending the thread it is flagged to exit to get the fading effect.

Here is the relevant code.

    void DrawSplashWindow()
    {
        mrEvent = new ManualResetEvent(false);
        mrEvent.WaitOne(4000, true);
        //fader loop

        for (double i=100.0; i>=0.0; i-=5.0) // run opacity index

        {
            Opacity = i/100.0;// decrease opacity

            Thread.Sleep(50);
        }
        Close();
    }

When the Close button is pressed the ManualResetEvent is Set to signal the Event and come out of the block on mrEvent.WaitOne() in the DrawSplashWindow() method.

    private void OnClose(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
    {
        // make the close button invisible

        CloseBtn.Visible = false;
        // flag the DrawSplashWindow thread to exit

        mrEvent.Set();
    }

Limitation

Opacity property is available only on Windows 2000 and Windows XP !

Extending the code

There are many ways the example given in this article can be used to enhance the splash window.

• The text can be drawn using the Graphics.DrawString() method. Calculating the location and drawing one character at a time is a good idea (it brings life to the window).
  
• To add details like registration and contact information at runtime add static and edit box controls rather than drawing them.
  
• Since the SplashWindow class is a stand alone reusable class the display string, duration of display and fading effect can all be parameterized to build a generic class.
  I leave the rest to the imagination of the reader :-)

You must Sign In to use this message board.

FAQ    Noise Tolerance Very HighHighMediumLowVery Low   Layout Expand Posts & RepliesThread ViewNo JavascriptNo JS + Preview   Per page 102550

Msgs 1 to 8 of 8 (Total in Forum: 8) (Refresh) FirstPrevNext

Never Update the UI Directly from a Worker Thread tupacs01 20:34 24 Sep '04   That's the golden rule of multi-threaded programming. Setting the Opacity falls into this category, and can cause some serious stability issues on some systems. Use InvokeRequired and Invoke to update the UI from a worker thread. Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Unusual code ThePhoenix 9:56 14 Dec '03   I note that you have the DrawSplashWindow as a static function, instead of an instance function - any design reason for this? Looking at it, I'd have thought it better to simply start the thread on this.DrawSplashWindow, and avoid having the "MySelf" variable to work around the static / instance problem. You might also like to consider using a ManualResetEvent to signal the thread to stop - then you can just run WaitHandle.WaitOne() to sleep and avoid the loop w/ 100ms delay. Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink 5.00/5 (1 vote) Re: Unusual code Sriram Chitturi 10:53 14 Dec '03   Initally I wrote the code to start the thread from a different class and then pasted the same into the SplashWindow class as a static method. Your suggestion about the ManualResetEvent is very good. I have modified the code and changed the article. Learned something from this article myself Thanks ! Sriram Chitturi Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink 2.00/5 (1 vote) Quick improvement dog_spawn 14:14 12 Dec '03   I don't think that splash screen looks "good" or "cute". I realise you are showing a technique rather than your design skills but I think you should provide a better sample screenshot. Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Re: Quick improvement Sriram Chitturi 4:30 13 Dec '03   I appreciate your comment. You are the only one till now who had taken real intrest in the article (since this is the only comment ) Anyway I wanted the user community to pick up the idea to build their splash windows or about boxes as they are very much specific to the application. Sriram Chitturi Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Yes. Shog9 9:23 14 Dec '03   It needs more drawings of bunny rabbits. Shog9 --- You'd better turn back, before the frost sets in. These desert nights are for weathered men, The ones who've already given in... Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Re: Yes. Sriram Chitturi 10:37 14 Dec '03   I would love that. But I am more a programmer than an artist and was trying to show the technique than art. Sriram Chitturi Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Re: Quick improvement Simon Brown 23:08 14 Dec '03   Hi, If you want groovy stuff look at www.wincustomize.com[^] - this should satisfy anyone Simon Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink

Last Visit: 6:20 9 Nov '09     Last Update: 6:20 9 Nov '09 1