Getting WinForms menus and toolbars to use the system theme? - winforms

Is there a way to get WinForms controls MenuStrip and ToolStrip to rendering using the current system theme?
Normally the WinForms MenuStrip and ToolStrip controls have a RenderMode property, which points to a class that handles the rendering:
ToolStripSystemRenderer
ToolStripProfessionalRenderer
ManagerRenderMode
which defaults to whatever ToolStripManager.Renderer uses (i.e. Professional or System)
Neither of these renderers use the Windows system theme:
How can i get a .NET WinForms MenuStrip and ToolStrip control to use the system theme?
i could ask some related, but different, questions:
does the .NET FCL contain a ToolStripRenderer that implements "system" rendering?
has anyone written a ToolStripRenderer that implements "system" rendering?

hey i know its not exectly the answer you where looking for but telerik already did what you want,
i used there library and works great, so you can go either way you can use there library or maybe get some ideas from it here is there home page about winforms
hope this helps.

Related

How to use the WinRT SwapChainPanel control in a WPF window?

I added references to WinRT dlls to a WPF project and I want to use SwapChainPanel inside of a WPF window.
Is it really possible? For now I cant get it work.
The NuGet package description for Microsoft.Toolkit.Wpf.UI.Controls mentions a SwapChainPanel but I have not found any samples using this control in WPF.
SwapChainPanel : Provides a hosting surface, where Microsoft DirectX swap chains provide content that can be rendered into a XAML UI. A SwapChainPanel element is a key component for an app that renders Microsoft DirectX graphics and then presents those visuals within a XAML page.
It's not currently officially supported - might require some private APIs in Windows, though since Stardock could implement its ModernMix - there might be some way to get it working. The thing is though - you don't have to do that. You can render content with DirectX to a WPF window in other ways. I haven't done that and it might be quite a bit of work to do, but so is anything in DirectX. You can look into DirectComposition or D3DImage class. Perhaps the article on using Direct2D with WPF can be a good sample solution.
You dont have to, as says Filip Skakun, but you can ! Just give a try to SlimDX or SharpDX. They're DirectX's implementations in C#.

Context menu in WinRT Xaml

Is there any default way to have context menu in WinRT.
am migrating my WPF application to WinRT Xaml, and am in search of Context menu support in WinRT.
How could i achieve this?
Typically the AppBar is the best replacement for a ContextMenu. If you really need a hidden touch&hold sort of a context menu you could try the context Menu control from Callisto. Windows 8.1 adds a MenuFlyout control which I think is similar to the one in Callisto.
Why not opt for FlyOut Control?! IMHO it should support for any framework.
PopupMenu is the built-in class for context menu functionality. It has a limitation of 6 commands and provides a separator support. It is not a control, so it has no UI customization or design time support. You can look at this example for how it is used.

Can we integrate a WinForms application with a WPF application?

I want to integrate two existing applications into one. One of those apps is built on Windows Forms and the other on WPF.
Is it possible to achieve this?
WPF supplies the WindowsFormsHost class that allows you to host WinForms controls inside a WPF window; conversely, WinForms supplies ElementHost that allows you to host WPF controls inside a form.
Unfortunately how well things work out is highly dependent on exactly what you are doing, last time I checked there were more than a few rough edges. For more information, definitely start from this MSDN page.
If you want to have "independent" WPF windows and WinForms forms inside the same application, you will have to make both frameworks "share" some code in your UI thread's message loop. For a primer on how to do that, see here.
There are various classes to help you with this.
For hosting Windows Forms controls in a WPF Window, you can use the WindowsFormsHost class. For hosting WPF Controls in a Windows Forms Window, you can use the ElementHost class.
You can look here for mor information on the subject (windows forms section):
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms753178.aspx

Apply telerik themes to WPF Dialogs

How can I apply telerik themes to a dialog box eg for example; MessageBox, FolderBrowserDialog. In Wpf
Thanks in advance.
I assume you are using the windows forms System.Windows.Forms dialog boxes in wpf? If so, there is likely little hope for themeing them with Telerik WPF themes. You may be able to theme them with a telerik Windows Forms theme, but I am unsure, I don't really use Forms anymore.
If however you are using the Microsoft.Win32 namespaced dialogs, it is my understanding that they will use whatever theme is installed on the operating system by default. The following CodeProject article shows how to dig into the API, and may be of help to you, but it doesn't specifically say how to alter the theme.
http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/16276/Customizing-OpenFileDialog-in-NET

WPF App - How to obtain a reference to the corresponding System.Windows.Forms.Form?

In my WPF Project I have a WPF Window. I want to use Sticky Windows Solution in my WPF Project. The library wants only one parameter: the System.Windows.Forms.Form object.
Does it exist any way to obtain a Form object starting from a WPF Window object?
No, it's not possible. A WPF Window has no inheritance relation with a Windows Forms Form. However it would probably be possible to adapt the code from the library to mentioned so that it works with WPF...
The approach others have mentioned of refactoring Sticky Windows Solution to support WPF forms sounds like your best option. If you really want to treat a WPF form as a Windows Form, maybe the below will help:
Would this work?
Host your WPF form in an ElementHost
control. (ElementHost enables a WPF element to be treated as a Windows Form control.)
Create a simple Windows Form
containing only this ElementHost
control.
Use a reference to this Windows Form in
your Sticky Windows Solution.
While it's not possible, the article and code does present enough information for you to create a WPF version.

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