[Tutorial] Windows Vista/7 Glass Window

NextGenEdit: Original Code By DFXBB's

Hi !

One of the most coolest features of Windows Vista/7 is its glass effect in Forms.

In this short tutorial I'll show you how to make your form entirely transparent. The difference is that by default Windows do transparency in title bar. But we can change that and apply the transparency to complete Form.

Here we go:

Create a new project.

Add this namespace:

Code:

Imports System.Runtime.InteropServices

Then add this:

Code:

'This will declare margins for transparency of our window...
<StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential)> _
    Public Structure WinMargins
        Public LWidth As Integer
        Public THeight As Integer
        Public RWidth As Integer
        Public BHeight As Integer
    End Structure

Then declare the following API:
Note: The following API is only present in Windows Vista /7

Code:

<DllImport("dwmapi.dll")> _
    Public Shared Function DwmExtendFrameIntoClientArea(ByVal hWnd As IntPtr, ByRef pMarinset As WinMargins) As Integer
    End Function

Now Double Click The Form and add the following code:

Code:

Dim margins As WinMargins = New WinMargins
'The value of -1 is used when you want to use full window as transparency...
         Dim WM As WinMargins = New WinMargins
        WM.LWidth = -1
        WM.RWidth = -1
        WM.THeight = -1
        WM.BHeight = -1
'The handle of your window..
        Dim handle As IntPtr = Me.Handle
' Finally call the API function by inputing window handle and your window margins ..
        DwmExtendFrameIntoClientArea(handle, WM)

Note: Transparency will not turned on unless you change the Form's back color to Black.

Credits: MSDN for API DwmExtendFrameIntoClientArea Function (Windows)

Here's a screen shot:

Greetz, MJLover

Awesome.
GOod tutorial

Woah VB can do everything!

Well written tutorial.

thanks for sharing

Public Class Form2

Private Sub Form2_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
MyNewSub()
End Sub
Sub MyNewSub()
TransparencyKey = BackColor

End Sub
End Class

something like that?

You're welcome. If I get time I'll write some more tutorials because Aero API is very rich and offers many other great effects

And yes VB can do anything. All .NET languages are equivalently powerful

Originally Posted by tremaster

Public Class Form2

Private Sub Form2_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
MyNewSub()
End Sub
Sub MyNewSub()
TransparencyKey = BackColor

End Sub
End Class

something like that?

No, buddy not like that. I think you didn't followed the tutorial. Plus I doubt that you are not using Vista/7.

Anyways tutorial is easy. Follow it and hopefully you will get the effect

yo mang pm me back

Looks Great, thanks for sharing.

Sorry, im a newb to Visual Basic, and I don't understand most of this tutorial, you don't have to, but can you make this more newb friendly or make a video? Cause' I really wanna know how to do this. If you can't, its all good.

Thread Reopened, Credit to author added to post 1

While this thread might be repoened lets get a couple things straight:

1. It's is not our responsibility to make sure you credit your sources.

2. It is not right to claim others work as your own, in order to make urself look good.

There is nothing wrong with sharing a tutorial that you found interesting, preferably not from a rival site though, but if you want to link to MSDN, or even share some interesting snippets that is no big deal, but you can not just outright use someone else's work without even attempting to mention them.