Introduction
In an earlier VC++ (MFC) project, I designed a GUI with which the assistance robots in a machine could be positioned. For that I changed the rectangular button shape into an arrow shape. I have taken up the idea to program such arrows also in C# (.NET Framework). For that I read the most, very helpful, article about shaped forms on CodeProject. So with that information and the goal to deepen my knowledge in C# (GDI+, .NET Framework), I started the project. Here is the result.
Using the code
The project is designed as a custom control. In my article "PictureBox with zooming and scrolling", I described how to install and use such a control, or have a look at the different articles about that topic in CodeProject, for example "Writing your Custom Control: step by step" by Alexandr Khilov.
Methods / Properties
The control provides six designer related properties:
NormalStartColor, NormalEndColor
-> Start- and End color for the LinearGradientBrush
in normal state.
HoverStartColor, HoverEndColor
-> Start- and End color for the LinearGradientBrush
if the mouse cursor is over the arrow.
Rotation
-> The pointing direction of the arrow in degrees. Starting with 0° at 12 O' clock raising clockwise to 360°.
ArrowEnabled
-> Enable or disable the button. Act like the enable/disable in other controls.
Events
There is one public event in the class OnClickEvent
. The event is fired if the mouse button is over the arrow and pressed.
Helper classes
The class BitArray
is a simple helper class that I used to hold different button states (and to play a little bit with indexer). In the code you can see how to work with it.
ArrowButtonDesigner
is derived from System.Windows.Forms.Design.ControlDesigner
. A base designer class for extending the design mode behavior of a control. I used it only to hide properties.
A suggestion about the demo
Apart from the buttons -X and +X the other buttons have no function. If you click the x-value lower than 0 or make it bigger than 50, the HoverColor
of the special ArrowButton
will change to red.
Known restrictions
- If you make the arrow too big, sometimes the calculation to prevent clipping doesn't work correct.
- There is no test to check if the button text is correct in length and size.