Looking for the optimal way to use custom font definitions in WinForms application.

Question

Hi,

I have a Windows Forms application where I need to make all fonts of all UI elements configurable from a separate file. I.e. I want to be able to specify that a label has a font "TitleBarBoldFont" which would resolve to a real font, depending on the current locale. The configuration file may contain a corresponding section like this:

    <Font fontID="TitleBarBoldFont">
        <Display facename="Helvetica" pointSize="12">
            <Override lang="ja" facename="Meiryo Bold" pointSize="12"/>
            <Override lang="zh" facename="SimHei" pointSize="12"/>
            <Override lang="ru" facename="Arial Bold" pointSize="12"/>
        </Display>
    </Font>

My question is: is there a standard .NET/Windows Forms way to achieve this so that I could specify my custom fonts in the WinForms designer and wouldn't have to explicitly call a font resolution method for each GUI element in the code?

Answer 1

Simplest way is to bind the font property in the Properties Window to an application setting, which will end up in the app.config file for your application.