Adding custom skins for Forms in VB.Net

Introduction

In this project I have created an User control which can be used in Windows Form applications in VB.NET. Using this control you can add a New look to your Forms. I wont say this as a perfect code and method for adding skins, But there may be other ways which are better than this. I believe this as a simple way for adding skins to Win Forms.

Download Form_Skin.zip - 218.2 KB

Background

I was searching for some free skinner control to add for my Project. But I didnt find anything. Finally I got a small clue in a website to create skins. Thanks for that author. This control is fully made of panel controls. And I created the images for this skin in Photoshop. May or may not similar codes are available in the Code Project. Feel free to contact me for any suggestions about this control. You can get any help from me through e-mail.

Using the code

No special coding is needed for using this control. Just add the control in your Toolbox by Right clicking on the toolbox and selecting Choose Items and then Skinner.dll from the location you have stored. After this the Control is ready to use and you can drag and drop the control in the form to use this control. The Caption for the skinned form is read from the Form's text property. The icon is also taken from the icon which is set to the original form. The form's background is set to Transparent by using the Transparency key property. This will be set by the Skinner control. The following line shows this

 Me.ParentForm.TransparencyKey = System.Drawing.Color.FromArgb(121, 121, 121)
        

Remember to set the Language of your code snippet using the Language dropdown.

History

This is the predecessor version for my Skin controls in VB.NET. 6 April 2008. You can expect for the updated version soon with lots of improvements and almost all functionalities of a form like changing the position of form by dragging the title bar.