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[muttley1968]

Hello in this Tut I am going to be showing you my work round to create a custom form in which
the user can then customize it them self.

First you are going to add a new user control and name is Menu.vb

Then add

x1 panel (Dock = fill)
x3 Picutrebox (Dock = right)

name picturebox1 "Close"
name picturebox2 "max"
name picturebox3 "min"
name panel1 "bar"

you should now have a form looking some what like this



Okay so with that done Lets go to MyProject and then to the Settings tab.
Here create the following settings

Bar = string
Min = string
close = string
max = string

So you should then have something like this



Now its time for the Code, go to the form load event and add this code

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    Try
            If Not My.Settings.Bar = Nothing Then
                Bar.BackgroundImage = Image.FromFile(My.Settings.Bar)
            End If
            If Not My.Settings.Close = Nothing Then
                close.BackgroundImage = Image.FromFile(My.Settings.Close)
            End If
            If Not My.Settings.min = Nothing Then
                min.BackgroundImage = Image.FromFile(My.Settings.min)
            End If
            If Not My.Settings.max = Nothing Then
                max.BackgroundImage = Image.FromFile(My.Settings.max)
            End If
        Catch ex As Exception
            MsgBox("Their was an errir loading you custom theme. if this error persists contact admin" + vbNewLine + vbNewLine + vbNewLine + vbNewLine + ex.ToString)
        End Try

This code checks to see if their is a saved image and if so sets the control background image to the image that is saved.

Now double click the close button and add this code

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  FindForm.Close()

This just finds the active form and closes it.

Double click the max button and add

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        If FindForm.WindowState = FormWindowState.Maximized Then
            FindForm.WindowState = FormWindowState.Normal
        Else
            FindForm.WindowState = FormWindowState.Maximized
        End If

This will check the windowstate of the active form and maximize it or make it normal dependant on state

no press the minimize button and add

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  FindForm.WindowState = FormWindowState.Minimized

this minimizes the active form


okay now were going to create the form drag event so add this code

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  Dim drag As Boolean
    Dim mousex As Integer
    Dim mousey As Integer
    Private Sub panel1_MouseDown(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.Windows.Forms.MouseEventArgs) Handles Bar.MouseDown
        drag = True
        mousex = Windows.Forms.Cursor.Position.X - FindForm.Left
        mousey = Windows.Forms.Cursor.Position.Y - FindForm.Top
    End Sub

    Private Sub panel1_MouseMove(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.Windows.Forms.MouseEventArgs) Handles Bar.MouseMove
        If drag Then
            FindForm.Top = Windows.Forms.Cursor.Position.Y - mousey
            FindForm.Left = Windows.Forms.Cursor.Position.X - mousex
        End If
    End Sub
    Private Sub panel1_MouseUp(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.Windows.Forms.MouseEventArgs) Handles Bar.MouseUp
        drag = False
    End Sub

this code here is not all mine it was actually created in a help topic. but ill explain anyway basically its setting 2 integers of the mouse x and y axis its also then making a Boolean and on the mousedown is changing that to true and setting mouse x and y integers we set to the cursors positions and forms top left, then on the mouse move if drag is true it is moving the form and finally on the mouse up we set drag to false

This is it for the UserControl this is now ready to add to any form and work, but at the moment the users are not able to customize it so lets cheat a little copy the controls from our user control into
a panel in a new form.

No on this form add the following code to the click of each event

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       Dim OpenFileDialog1 As New OpenFileDialog
        With OpenFileDialog1
            .CheckFileExists = True
            .ShowReadOnly = False
            .FilterIndex = 2
            If .ShowDialog = DialogResult.OK Then
                My.Settings.Bar = .FileName
                Bar.BackgroundImage = Image.FromFile(.FileName)
            End If
        End With

Here we are setting the location of the image in my.settings.bar and were changing the image on the form so the user can see their change. Do this for all the controls that we copied over just be sure to change the my.settings.(yourcontrol) to the control you are using and same for the image the users sees.


That's it you have now created a customizable form control

sorry about offsite link I was unable to use upload attachment on site just kept saying page could not be found

This file is hosted off-site.