| Printable Version
Windows Control Library (Digital Clock)
By Shripad Kulkarni
| Download Source : DigitalClock |
| Creating a new Control |
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A windows
control library is like an Active X Control that you have been developing
using VC++. In the VS .NET IDE environment, controls can be found by clicking
the toolbox icon. Windows controls can be either UI controls like "Edit"
, "Label" , "ListBox" etc (Found under the
Windows Forms Tab ) or non UI controls like Timers ( found under the Components
Tab).To create a control under the VS .NET IDE environment , create a
new project of the type Windows Control Library.
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Within the control
, use the Paint event to do all the drawing.
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private void UserControl1_Paint(object sender, System.Windows.Forms.PaintEventArgs e)
{
cc.Set_Time(hour , min , sec ,e.ClipRectangle ,e.Graphics, foreColor );
}
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A timer is used
to update the current time every second and invalidate the control.
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private void timer1_Elapsed(object sender, System.Timers.ElapsedEventArgs e)
{
RefreshTime(ref hour , ref min ,ref sec);
Invalidate() ;
}
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| Adding the control
to ToolBox List |
Once
the control is created you can add the control to the ToolBox ( Windows
Forms tab ) by right clicking on the toolbox and selecting the "Customize
Toolbox.. / .Net Framework Components Tab". Browse for the
DLL that you have created and click OK.
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| Using the
Control |
The
"User Control" will be added
to the end of the list. Once you have added the control to the ToolBox
, just drag and drop the control into the Windows Form.
 .
You
can use the property tab to set the fore color and the back color of
the control.
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| Special Note : I would like to thank Nila Costin-Gabriel
for his article on ActiveX control under http://www.codeproject.com.
His article Digital Clock & Timer ActiveX Control has been developed using
the VC++ 6.0 environment. This article is like a conversion of the VC++
article to VC#. |
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