How to customize the controlbox of a winform in c#

Question

I want to customize the controlbox of my winform with a different background for it and different button images. How can I do so? Is there any way to make a custom controlbox with usercontrol or something like that and then add it to the winform?

I strongly suggest you look at WPF. It has much bigger customization features than winforms. — Federico Berasategui, Mar 14 '13 at 17:12

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 13 '13 at 09:00

You have no influence on that using .NET framework means. You'd have to implement custom drawing for the non-client area of the form. The following might help you here: http://www.codeplex.com/wikipage?ProjectName=CustomerBorderForm&title=Painting%20NonClient%20Area

score 0 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:44

You can create your own custom controls by inheriting from a UserControl like so

class MyControl : System.Windows.Forms.Button //this could also have been System.Windows.Forms.UserControl or any other existing control type as a template
{
    protected override void OnPaint(System.Windows.Forms.PaintEventArgs e)
    {
        //Paint whatever you wish on this buttons graphics using e.Graphics
    }
}

There is a lot to programming custom controls. To much to answer here. A good reference is: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/6hws6h2t.aspx

You could create your own sort of Forms control and hide the parents controlbox. Or maybe you can inherit from System.Windows.Form and createa a custom form. But I have never tried that myself.

And for using OnPaint you have to keep some rules in mind if you care about performance and/or flickering and such: What is the right way to use OnPaint in .Net applications?

score -1 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 13 '13 at 17:04

I don't know if I understand correct. Do you want create your own control? If is, try this:

Create a Custom Control.
Alter the type of your control.

Change:

public partial class MyCustomControl : Control { ... }

For:

public partial class MyCustomControl : Form { ... }

Alter the value of Controlbox properties to false.
Alter any properties you want customize.
Create a new Form.
Alter the type of your form.

Change:

   public partial class MyForm : Form { ... }

For:

public partial class MyForm : MyCustomControl { ... }

And now your MyForm it's like your MyCustomControl and you can reuse in all your project.

How to customize the controlbox of a winform in c#

3 Answers3