need help in customizing GUI for my application in visual-studio-2008

Question

Hello Everyone,

Actually, I'm trying to build a little "Image Viewer cum Editor" as a small college project. Now, when I have almost completed it I don't find it attractive at all (from the GUI point of view). So, I'm thinking to improve the GUI. One of my friend suggested that I make use of WPF which is available in the visual studio.

So now, Could anyone please suggest me how do I customize my GUI either in WPF or WFA. I mean how can I have a button similar to "start" button in win 7. How can I achieve crystal type glassy looks of vista/win 7 for my application. How to customize upto that level? Some one throw some light please.

Answer 1

There is an article on MSDN about Using Templates to Customize WPF Controls. I haven't tried this much. Instead I would go old school on this button: You can achieve the same results as the Windows 7 start button has by building a user control that acts like a button but looks different. The user control needs one image while idle, one when it's pressed, one when the mouse hovers over it etc. Then you set the different images on that user control when the different actions are performed on it. You can also build methods that fade the images in and out.