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Transparent Splash Screen

DameonBlack

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13 Jan 2006CPOL

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Creating a transparent Splash Screen - like the one used by Adobe.

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:

VB

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.

License

This article, along with any associated source code and files, is licensed under The Code Project Open License (CPOL)

Written By

DameonBlack

Web Developer

United States

Just another programmer trying to figure it all out. Big Grin | :-D

Big Grin | :-D

MCP, MCSD & MCAD

Comments and Discussions

Hi I used your example to create my own splash screen. It worked great. Thank you.

However I wanted to add a fade effect to my splash screen and used the Opacity property and a timer to fade in the splash screen. But the image is not transparent when fading, the color used as transparent color in photoshop shows where it should be transparent.

Is this by design or is it something I have done wrong? Can it be accomplished any other way?

My code for fading in looks something like this:

Private Sub fadeIn() 'called from Private Sub Initialize()
tmeFade = New System.Windows.Forms.Timer
Me.Opacity = m_dblMinOp
m_dblFadeStep = (m_maxOp - m_minOp) / (m_intFadeTime / m_intFadeInterval)
m_bolFadingIn = True

Me.BringToFront()
Debug.WriteLine(m_dblFadeStep)
With tmeFade
.Interval = m_intFadeInterval
.Start()
End With
End Sub

Private Sub tmeFade_Tick(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles tmeFade.Tick
Dim dblOp As Double
Me.BringToFront()
If m_bolFadingIn Then
dblOp = Me.Opacity + m_dblFadeStep
If dblOp > 1 Then
dblOp = 1
End If
Me.Opacity = dblOp

Debug.WriteLine(Me.Opacity)
If (dblOp >= m_maxOp) Then
tmeFade.Stop()
End If
Else 'fading out
dblOp = Me.Opacity - m_dblFadeStep
If (dblOp <= 0) Then
tmeFade.Stop()
Me.Close()
Else
Me.Opacity = dblOp
End If
End If
End Sub

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