How do I create a custom checkbox control

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1.47/5 (3 votes)

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Hello.

I want to create a custom checkbox control for a windows forms application.
To do this I tried to inherit from a button control and placed a transparent picturebox on the button. I want the control to react on focus and hower events like the button control does, but not only if the mouse is on the button but also if the mouse is on the picturebox. The control shall behave like a unit, not like a button with a picture box.

Thanks for your help.

Posted 24-Apr-15 3:32am

Georg Newton

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Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 24-Apr-15 9:41am

This is not so easy, but quite doable. Your biggest mistake here is using a PictureBox. Don't do it. Render graphics yourself.
—SA

Maciej Los 24-Apr-15 15:38pm

Not clear what you're asking for... ;(
Why to replace existing control if it's already exists??? If you want to extend some methods/ properties, use base class (CheckBox)!

BillWoodruff 24-Apr-15 17:17pm

Please say more about what your goal is here. What custom functionality do you want to have that requires that you create a custom CheckBox ? Do you want the CheckBox to be two-state or three-state ?

Georg Newton 27-Apr-15 2:32am

You're right, maybe I should tell you about the requirements. The checkbox is to evaluate tests. Therefore it is supposed to have three states: unknown(when you could not perform the test), passed and failed. In order to fit to the rest of the software, I would like to use the symbols I used there.

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Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov · Accepted Answer · 2015-04-24T03:43:00

Solution 1

Please see my comment to the question.

Please see my past answers:
Append a picture within picturebox[^],
draw a rectangle in C#[^],
How do I clear a panel from old drawing[^].

Other problems could be solved as you face them, but it's still better to make a good plan.

—SA

Posted 24-Apr-15 3:43am

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov

Comments

Maciej Los 24-Apr-15 15:39pm

Short and to the point!

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 24-Apr-15 15:42pm

Thank you, Maciej.
—SA

Maciej Los 24-Apr-15 15:47pm

Sergey, have you seen my comment to the question? I do not understand why people wantd to "replace" existing controls. They have to extend its methods and properties instead creating completely new one. Am i right or am i wrong? I'm wondering your opinion...

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 24-Apr-15 16:12pm

I don't know, there are cases when it makes sense, I think.

The problem is different: people tend to decorate (or even clutter with decorations) instead of inventing really advanced behavior. This is just visual garbage. So, on one pole, a delicate touch on individual recognizable design (but then, on all elements, not just one, in a really artful, coherent ways). That could be very delicious design, and yet touching controls just a bit, some specially chosen colors and highlights. On another pole, you can develop something really innovative, but that should be based on really rich behavior, not just look. For example, I decided to develop joystick control and found it very efficient (progressive scale in speed of the controlled machine, and the like). And of course I decided to design adequate UI control for that. I don't want to say my work was really good (most likely, not quite), but this is something non-trivial, to show all those degrees of freedom, providing proper fallback control behavior when the joystick is not physically present, and so on. There are many cases like that.

And there are too many people who are doing not this and not that, but who knows what. I think they just waste time. Or maybe some don't waste time, because they spend this time learning things on their own mistakes. If they do, it's also not too bad. Eventually, based on their negative and positive experience, they might start inventing really good stuff, who knows...

—SA

Maciej Los 24-Apr-15 16:17pm

Ha! I got motto: "Don't waste your time to decorate UI. Too much `decoration` will kill you" ;)

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 24-Apr-15 16:37pm

It depends on what "decoration" is. "Too much" is always bad. Perhaps your opinion is strongly affected by majority of the products (especially Web) which are just killing my eyes, really. But how about developing a really fine sense of taste and developing a fine design where every pixel matters? Wouldn't it be good?

I'm observing a lot of modern industrial design work and try to learn from it. One of the principle I came to: if you have one single line, one single boundary between two colors, one single pixel which does not serve clearly defined and apparent purpose, throw the whole design out, it's trash.

For example take such a simple thing as grouping of elements: what one text caption belongs to, to the element on top, or on bottom? A good designer make it quite clear. A good designer will probably show it with empty space, empty space between related element a bit but distinctly smaller then between the unrelated, and both sizes will be thoroughly chosen, to be not too much, not too close. And what a bad designer will do? Will add another element, a frame. This is visual garbage.

Good design is not a pound of raisins. :-)
(There is a stronger version of this saying, about "non canis...", pardon my Latin... :-)

—SA

Maciej Los 24-Apr-15 16:49pm

Agree, it depends on many factors, but the base thought is the same: "visual garbage". You take out it from my mouth ;)

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 24-Apr-15 17:48pm

:-)

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 24-Apr-15 17:52pm

Georg Newton,

Please don't take it wrong: even when we discuss some silly things, we did not mean to say anything bad about you. This is a legitimate question I actually answered. Your follow-up questions will be welcome as well.

—SA

Maciej Los 25-Apr-15 7:39am

Yeah. No one talking about you. We are talking about UI design.

Georg Newton 27-Apr-15 2:37am

Thanks for your kind words. I will try to use your solution and will come back to tell you if it worked.

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 27-Apr-15 7:21am

All right, please do.
—SA

Georg Newton 27-Apr-15 10:17am

Ok. Here is what I've tried:
- I inherit my control from a button control
- I've overridden the OnPaint method with:
base.OnPaint(e);
// Omitted calculation of the size.
e.Graphics.DrawImage(Bitmap, xCoor, yCoor, width, height );
Result: The button is shown without the bitmap.
What is wrong?

In order to update the bitmap when the checkbox state changes I have to call: this.Invalidate(), right?

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 27-Apr-15 10:23am

Anything can be wrong. Any of your 5 arguments of your call. I don't know what is in Bitmap, what is location and size... Use the debugger, to start with?
—SA

Georg Newton 27-Apr-15 10:51am

I've used the debugger already. The bitmap is loaded from properties.resources. Location should be the upper left corner of the rendering, right? The size is within the button size.

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 27-Apr-15 11:29am

Draw just the line to see if your rendering mechanism works at all.
—SA

Georg Newton 28-Apr-15 5:50am

Good idea. Mechanism doesn't work. Here what I've tried:
protected override void OnPaint(PaintEventArgs e)
{
base.OnPaint(e);
e.Graphics.DrawLine(new Pen(new SolidBrush(Color.Black), 3f),new Point(5,5),new Point(7,100));
}

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 28-Apr-15 8:35am

It's not good to create a pen each time. Don't call base. Keep it simpler:


protected override void OnPaint(System.Windows.Forms.PaintEventArgs e) {
   e.Graphics.DrawLine(System.Drawing.Pens.Black, 0, 0, 1000, 1000);
}

—SA

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 27-Apr-15 10:25am

No, Invalidate invalidates the control. This is the way to refresh the rendering (redraw), or part of it. This is done when data is changed.
—SA

Georg Newton 27-Apr-15 10:52am

That's what I wanted to say...

Georg Newton 28-Apr-15 8:40am

Yeah. Your solution and the code I've posted are correct. I had some designer problems because I've had tried to inherit from usercontrol and compose my control out of a button and a picturebox before. After I've inherited from a button class, the designer code was bad.

Thank you very much. That's what I've imagined before all my problems occured.

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 28-Apr-15 9:25am

You are very welcome. It's a pleasure to help someone who can really listen to the advice, put adequate effort and make things happen.

Just a side note: I always say that it is important not to overuse the designers. Some try to pretend that it helps to avoid manual work and design UI "without programming", but overuse can create a log of even more manual work, with low quality of code and poor maintainability.

—SA