[C#] Context Menu Strip with Windows Vista look and feel

[ProclaimDragon]

Hi,

I've searched and searched google but can't find anything... I'm currently using 2 context menu strips in my application, one for the notification icon and another for the contextual menu of a textbox. I want them to have the look and feel of menus in Vista with the possibility to use icons. However, if the application is used on XP, I want the menus to have the look and feel of XP, also using the icons.

Can anyone help me out?

[azcodemonkey]

What do you mean by context menu strips? Menu bars?

[ProclaimDragon]

Open up VS2005, create a windows application project and look at the toolbox. There is a component there called "ContextMenuStrip" under "Menus & Toolbars".

[Winston]

You'd probably have to create your own Renderer for the ContextMenuStrip.

Have a look at this:

http://www.chaliy.com/TipsAndTricks/Vs2005LikeRendering/

and

http://www.codeproject.com/cs/menu/Office2007Renderer.asp

Edit, and this:

http://www.chaliy.com/Sources/RebarRenderer/Default.aspx

Edited November 10, 2007 by Winston

[ProclaimDragon]

None of those links helped me out... None of them render the menus like the native Windows Vista menus.

[azcodemonkey]

Open up VS2005, create a windows application project and look at the toolbox. There is a component there called "ContextMenuStrip" under "Menus & Toolbars".

Shows you how much I do Winforms these days. LOL :blush:

[ProclaimDragon]

Shows you how much I do Winforms these days. LOL :blush:

So you have no clue right? Maybe this is only possible on VS2008 and with .NET 3.0 or maybe not? I'm not really sure as I don't have it, but it must be a way...

[azcodemonkey]

So you have no clue right? Maybe this is only possible on VS2008 and with .NET 3.0 or maybe not? I'm not really sure as I don't have it, but it must be a way...

I could probably figure it out. Time is my only issue. I'd rather spend time with the ladies than coding. LOL

I'll see what I can come up with. I sincerely doubt it's only doable in 2008/3/3.5.

[jackslade]

How do they currently show up now versus what you want?

[+virtorio MVC]

Don't you just set the RenderMode to System?

contextMenuStrip1.RenderMode = ToolStripRenderMode.System;

EDIT: never mind, I see that doesn't do it either.

Edited November 13, 2007 by virtorio

[ProclaimDragon]

Don't you just set the RenderMode to System?

contextMenuStrip1.RenderMode = ToolStripRenderMode.System;

EDIT: never mind, I see that doesn't do it either.

The current render modes on VS don't do the trick. I'm using ManageRenderMode which looks like the image below, Professional (I think) also makes it look like the image:

In my google searches I only found about one thing. In VS2005, there's only one way to make the menus have the Vista look, I have to use the ContextMenu control and not the ContextMenuStrip. ContexMenu control is hidden, you have to add it to the toolbox. Although, there are no way to add icons to ContextMenu items, only owner-drawing, but that will loose the Vista look...

[azcodemonkey]

I guess I could be wrong about it not being tied to 3.0/3.5... There has to be a way to do it natively. It's just going to take some digging. I just grabbed the latest SDK, so I'll take a look at it when I can.

[ProclaimDragon]

I guess I could be wrong about it not being tied to 3.0/3.5... There has to be a way to do it natively. It's just going to take some digging. I just grabbed the latest SDK, so I'll take a look at it when I can.

Thanks, whenever you have an answer, reply back :)

[ProclaimDragon]

Does anyone have any news on this?

[Commodore Max]

Try a ContextMenu object instead of a ContextStrip object.

[Doli]

I dont think you can do the Vista Look and feel with Windows Forms in .net with the standard tools.

[scumdogmillionaire]

I ran into the same problem with the combobox on vista.

It's all having to do with OwnerDraw. Once you turn that on in Vista, you're hosed without a long, convoluted process to re-theming that control.

[DudeDesign]

You can fully modify menustrips look and feel by using ToolStripRenderer. Just create a new class like this:

public class VistaToolstripRenderer : System.Design.ToolstripRenderer

... or something like that.

Take a look at following article in codeproject. It shows how to create a style which follows Office 2007 guidelines. If you can't accomplish the style you're trying to make, I may create it as part of my project called Cloud Toolkit.Net (https://sourceforge.net/projects/cloudtoolkitnet/). It has Office 2007 toolstriprenderer but not yet Vista or any else renderer

Codeproject article about ToolstripRenderer

Regards,

Timo Salom?ki

[ProclaimDragon]

The problem is that I don't want the Vista renderer. If that was the case, users running XP would have their menus themed with Vista look and that's not what I want. I want to have menus that have the visual style OS look and use icons.

[Winston]

No, if you use the VisualStyleRenderer classes, it takes it directly off the OS's theme.

[ProclaimDragon]

But that's exactly the issue here, why I created this thread. I never talked about that class cause I didn't know it existed, that's why I created this help topic :p

[Winston]

Oh right, you didn't make it so clear, I suggest this is what you do:

You can either create a class and inherit from the old ContextMenu item and do some owner drawing yourself, and refer to this class:

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/s....menu.item.aspx

To actually retrieve the current OS's Visual Style menu item state's.

Or you can create your own managed renderer for the ContextMenuStrip, and use the above class to handle the drawing logic as well.

[EDIT] OK, my bad, I just realised, that it's not a class supported under Vista, hmm that's weird, I think you'd really have to result into using some PInvoking to achieve it.

Edited January 6, 2008 by Winston

[smurfiness]

Just out of curiosity, is there some reason why you don't just use one of the normal menu classes, and do all of the drawing yourself? You've probably already spent much more time looking for a boxed solution than you would have had you just done the GDI+ work yourself.

[ProclaimDragon]

That has been answered many times in this thread...

I can't use ContextMenu nor ContextMenuStrip because they don't use the system look depending on the OS and VisualStyle. Doing it in GDI+ wouldn't help at all. What if the user is using WindowBlinds or a hacked uxtheme.dll and use a different visual style? How is GDI+ going to help me there?

@Winston

I think I'll just forget it... I'm using ContextMenu for now, but I'm forgetting about the icons... Oh well, what you gonna do...

[smurfiness]

I can't use ContextMenu nor ContextMenuStrip because they don't use the system look depending on the OS and VisualStyle. Doing it in GDI+ wouldn't help at all. What if the user is using WindowBlinds or a hacked uxtheme.dll and use a different visual style? How is GDI+ going to help me there?

Ummm... it'll help you because you can query the system (through Windows.Forms) to get the bitmaps/colours making up the interface at any particular moment, and then draw the menu dynamically using GDI+. There are a whole set of classes in .NET for exactly this type of scenario.

There's no need for attitude here. Since you've spent two weeks on this, I was JUST wondering why you hadn't already considered the path of least resistance..........

[ProclaimDragon]

I haven't spent much time here, I just abandoned this thread a while ago... By "accident" I saw another reply an decided to reply back...

Either way, I have no idea how to do what you said, thus the thread...