Vista Aero

Hello. How can I enable the cool vista aero effects within my vb.net application? I wish to make portions of the form, or prehaps even the whole form, have the transparent glass effect. Any thoughts?

Nice signature there. :thumb:
Which version of .NET are you using? Have you heard about Windows Presentation foundation? Or even simpler, have you tried setting the Opacity property of the form?

Think you misspelled the link, otherwise, you forgot this:

Quote:

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Great sfotware comes from great thinkers

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:)

Haha thanks guys. I am currently using VB.NET 2005. Adjusting the opacity just changes the visibility of the form. I am looking to use the windows API if it is available to create the glass look for portions of my form.

Another unreleated question, do any of you know how to make vista go to sleep with a function withing VB.NET? I was looking and could not find anything. Thanks in advance.

Good to see you again TCanuck! :wave:

To get the Aero Glass effect, I think you can try the DwmExtendFrameIntoClientArea API. I stand corrected though, but test this application on your Vista, as only Vista supports the Desktop Window Manager DLLs

I hope it helps :)

The above post by Hannes is basically based on WPF. Look at this link on MSDN.
Added the link..
http://blogs.msdn.com/tims/archive/2...18/578637.aspx

This is an older thread, but I found it with a direct google search.
Since, there isn't a complete answer to this question in the forum, I figured this may help someone else searching for a quick answer.
Although, Hannes was right ofcourse.

Code:

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    Private Declare Function apiDwmExtendFrameIntoClientArea Lib "dwmapi" Alias "DwmExtendFrameIntoClientArea" (ByVal hWnd As Int32, ByRef pMarinset As MARGINS) As Int32
    Private Declare Function apiDwmIsCompositionEnabled Lib "dwmapi" Alias "DwmIsCompositionEnabled" (ByRef enabledptr As Boolean) As Boolean
    Public Structure MARGINS
        Public cxLeftWidth, cxRightWidth, cyTopHeight, cyBottomHeight As Int32
    End Structure

    Private Sub Form1_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
   
        If IsAeroEnabled() = True Then
            Me.BackColor = Color.Black
            GlossWindow(Me.Handle.ToInt32, -1, 0, 0, 0)
        End If

    End Sub

    Public Function IsAeroEnabled() As Boolean
        apiDwmIsCompositionEnabled(IsAeroEnabled)
    End Function

    Public Sub GlossWindow(ByVal hWnd As Int32, ByVal leftMargin As Int32, ByVal rightMargin As Int32, ByVal topMargin As Int32, ByVal bottomMargin As Int32)
        Dim margins As New MARGINS
        margins.cxLeftWidth = leftMargin
        margins.cxRightWidth = rightMargin
        margins.cyTopHeight = topMargin
        margins.cyBottomHeight = bottomMargin
        apiDwmExtendFrameIntoClientArea(hWnd, margins)
    End Sub

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Remember that the Aero theming is not available in Vista Home Basic or Windows 7 Starter editions