I have a Windows Forms application and I want to add a cool little visual to its thumbnail on the Windows Taskbar.
I know that you can have the thumbnail display a Progress Marquee-style thing, but how do we just change the color of it?
I'm not talking about changing the color of the icon, but the color that's behind the icon. Is this even possible?
Any code, documentation or anything to get me on the right track will be much appreciated.
You can use the TaskBar APIs available in the Windows API code pack
// This will highlight the icon in red
TaskbarManager.Instance.SetProgressState(TaskbarProgressBarState.Error);
// to highlight the entire icon
TaskbarManager.Instance.SetProgressValue(100,100);
Please note that this API was intended to indicate an error with a progressing operation (file copy, etc..)
Related
When I run my wpf application in debug mode, the icon on the taskbar looks fine (left image), but after I published and open the application, the icon looks pixelated (right image).
I've referred to this link and I set the icon image to 256x256, but still looks pixelated.
Please help.
try using an ico editor to save the icon with all the correct resolutions (the OS will display the correct one). I use icofx, but there are many options if you google it - they should all correct your image proportions. Most should have an equivalent option to the 'save windows icon' (in icofx) where you select all the resolutions you want to add to the file.
Just another thought - is you icon a resource file? If so you may need to remove it then add it again and make sure the resource is set to publish correctly (so you are not using an old version).
I am working on windows 8.1 app and I found that it contains default splash screen which we can't remove. Is there a way we can remove it something similar to windows phone 8. I want a splash screen which loads until a particular process is completed (example zip extraction,editing resources etc). I also did some research and found that Extended Splash Screen will help but if I add a progress ring, people using the app will know the difference that there are two screens. Please anyone suggest what will be the best approach?
You need to go to the Package.manifest, through Visual Studio, and change the splash screen value. Here is a link to the Xaml version and the steps:
Open your app in Visual Studio 2013.
From Solution Explorer, open the "Package.appxmanifest".
Open the Visual Assets tab, select Splash Screen and you'll see the "Assets\SplashScreen.png" path in the Splash Screen field which you can change to whatever you want.
Then you can use the Extend Splash Screen functionality to continue the screen until your app is ready.
The splash screen is an image in the root folder of the project. you can edit it in any image editor.
While you cannot remove the splashscreen, one option is to use a screen shot of your main page as a splashscreen, this way giving the impression that the app starts quickly.
In your Visual Studio Solution, Right click "package.phone.appxmanifest" --> View Code and comment this line: <m3:SplashScreen Image="images\SplashScreenPhone.png" /> . And the default splashscreen in windows app will be removed. Note: Manifest file name might defer for phone and windows app.
I'm still working on my c# application in changing the GUI and after googling around i found out that there are skins that can be used. I still don't understand how does this work, do i have to start from scratch? or will the skins merge along with my c# application. what changes will the skin do in my c# application aside from the GUI?
What i normally do for skinning is to remove form borders and set a background image,thus you can create forms of any shape.The steps i follow
Set the FormBorderStyle property to None.
Set the BackgroundImage property of the form to the .bmp you created above.
Set the TransparencyKey property of the form to the background color of the .bmp file
There are 2 parts to a winform client area and Non Client Area,You can do anything with the Client Area easily but None Client Area is uneditable.The Skinlibary you have mentioned in your comment hookes into windows message Loop to capture Events.
Check this answer to see how the Title bar color is changed Changing the color of the title bar in WinForm
In Windows with Aero... When the user hovers their mouse over the application's icon, a small preview of the app appears just above the taskbar. I'm looking for any information regarding how I can disable this preview or change/customize what appears in this little preview image box.
Note that I'm not looking to disable Aero features as a user - I'm looking to control this in-app.
Thank you in advance for answers!
Here is wrapper lib of the API, which controls these features in Windows - Jump Lists, Icon Overlay, Progress Bar, Tabbed Thumbnails, and Thumbnail Toolbars
http://archive.msdn.microsoft.com/WindowsAPICodePack
Currently my WPF apps have the "unknown document" type of icons. I don't want to design icons for each but something like the default icon for Winform apps would be very good.
You have to set the windows icon for each window (or at least for your main window). This is the icon that is shown in the windows title and in task-manager. Be aware that the window icon should not be an .ico-file having huge resolution icons, else it will fail on windows XP. You can also use a png-file.
<Window
...
Icon="/Assembly;component/imagePath/yourImage.png"
Title="Window Title"...>
The other icon is the icon in the projects properties page. This icon is used as the file icon. You must use an .ico-file. However for this, you can use also highres icon-files (for showing huge icons in Vista+ -explorer).