First Off, I would just like to say Hello! to the C# forum, I have recently started my MCP In Developing Windows Apps in C# (working towards MCAD) so I thought I will try and get involved in this forum as well as the Office Development forum that I normally lurk around in. So Hello!

I have recently got on to visual inheritance, which seems like it could be very powerful and useful in terms of producing a "standard" interface for an application. So I thought, "how could I use this to make an app a little more interesting?"..

So I thought, "how about a form that fades in and out on open/close?" seems like a great idea to me! So I started putting some code together, I have the form fading in nicely on open, by simple calling the fade code from its constructor.. Its the close that is causing me the problem!

Apologies, I cant post my current code as I am at work and stupid me didnt bring it in, but I have looked on the net, and all the suggestions/ideas seems to indicate that a fade out is only possible via multithreading.. is this the case?

Just wondered if anyone else had any ideas/facts on the issue.

I tried to do it using a loop and Application.DoEvents, the timer event seems to be firing in this loop, but much slower, and the form is not being repainted. I added a forced repaint, then it just flickered and looked awful!!

All comments and suggestions gratefully recieved!

Rob
The Developing Developer
Currently Working Towards: MCAD C#
My Blog: http://www.robzyc.spaces.live.com
<center>"Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal;
nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude".
Thomas Jefferson</center>

__________________
Rob
http://cantgrokwontgrok.blogspot.com

Welcome!

Solution: Install Vista ;)

Seriously though...

Presumably doing what you are doing in the constructor backwards doesn't work then? Could the problem be that the fade out code is running on the unload/hide EVENT (which fires after the main unload/hide method)? Maybe you need to override the unload/hide method, do the fade, then call the base's unload/hide.

-Peter

Hi Peter,

Yeah, I want Vista, but I need a new box for it and haven't really got the money to burn at the moment! :(

What I basically have is the fade in code in the Form_Load and the fade out in the Form_Closing events..

All they do is activate a timer, which then adds a value (the gradient) to a member field, which is then used to set the opacity level.

As I said, works fine on the load, but when the Closing event fires, its doing that, closing, and (from what I can see) there is no way to suspend the actual closing until the fade is complete...

I have had a brainwave though.. What if I was to cancel the close (in the closing event, using the event args) but set a field to CloseOnceFadeComplete to true.. and then the fade routine can pick this up and force a form close... ?? what do you think?

Hope I explained that clear enough (yeah right! :D) if you have any Q's then please shout!

Rob
The Developing Developer
Currently Working Towards: MCAD C#
My Blog: http://www.robzyc.spaces.live.com
<center>"Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal;
nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude".
Thomas Jefferson</center>

I imagine that should work.

If you can cancel the close event then fire off the fade-then-close. You'll need to add a check to the close event however that checks a flag set at the end of the fade routine. Otherwise, you'll end up with a endlessly fading window that will never close!

-Peter

I'll give it a whirl tonight!

Would be a nice-to-have, not quite a **************** Vista app, but may still look nice!

I'll keep you posted!

Rob
The Developing Developer
Currently Working Towards: MCAD C#
My Blog: http://www.robzyc.spaces.live.com
<center>"Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal;
nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude".
Thomas Jefferson</center>